NEW YORK — U.S. prosecutors charged Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, with a host of financial crimes and campaign finance violations on Tuesday, alleging he played a central role in the collapse of FTX and hid its problems from the public and investors.
Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas, where he has been living, after the U.S. filed criminal charges that will be made public Tuesday, according to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. The SEC complaint is separate. Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s wealthiest people on paper; at one point his net worth reached $26.5 billion, according to Forbes. He was a prominent personality in Washington, donating millions of dollars toward mostly left-leaning political causes and Democratic political campaigns, though he also gave money to Republicans. FTX grew to become the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
The SEC complaint alleges that Bankman-Fried had raised more than $1.8 billion from equity investors since May 2019 by promoting FTX as a safe, responsible platform for trading crypto assets.