Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder, has been arrested in Bahamas

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested by The Royal Bahamas Police Force following a report that the United States had filed criminal charges against him.

According to a statement released today and cited by BNO and other news organisations, the Office of the Attorney General of the Bahamas has decided to keep Bankman-Fried in jail until “a formal request for extradition is made.”

According to Philip Davis, Prime Minister of the Bahamas said, “The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law. While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.”

The arrest was made “at the request of the U.S. Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY,” according to the office of US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams. SDNY office tweeted, “We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”

A report by TechCrunch disclosed the ex-billionaire was set to appear as a witness before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services tomorrow.

The crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy last month, and Bankman-Fried was forced to resign as chief executive, prompting the committee to investigate the circumstances that led up to the implosion.

Bankman-Fried had illegally moved $10 billion from FTX clients to an allied trading firm, Alameda Research. A misunderstanding of “confusing internal labelling,” as explained by Bankman-Fried in a report, led to the transfer of funds. The former CEO insists he is innocent and has made these claims several times.

In a recent statement, Senators Sherrod Brown and Pat Toomey said that Bankman-Fried “continued to decline to testify in front of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and that his lawyers are refusing to accept a subpoena.”