Former CEO and founder of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried has been hit with an additional bribery charge, according to a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The filing alleges that Bankman-Fried directed $40 million in cryptocurrencies to “one or more Chinese government officials in order to influence” them to unfreeze accounts owned by FTX’s sister trading firm Alameda Research.
Previous charges against the disgraced FTX founder include wire fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and defrauding the Federal Election Commission.
On the charges related to the FEC, prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried and others “would and did defraud the United States, and an agency thereof, by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of a department and agency of the United States through deceitful and dishonest means.”
The charge relates specifically to allegedly deceiving the FEC’s ability to “administer federal law concerning source and amount restrictions in federal elections, including the prohibitions applicable to corporate contributions and conduit contributions,” according to the indictment.
Today’s superseding indictment comes just a month after prosecutors hit Bankman-Fried with four additional charges following the former CEO’s arrest in December last year. Bankman-Fried now faces a total of 13 criminal charges in connection with the dramatic collapse of the once-dominant FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
This story is developing and will be updated.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/124747/sam-bankman-fried-bribing-chinese-government-officials
