SBF charged with bribing CCP official to unfreeze Alameda assets

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the former FTX co-founder, allegedly paid $40 million in bribes to at least one Chinese government official.

SBF wanted to unfreeze accounts

According to allegations by federal prosecutors, SBF allegedly paid tens of millions of dollars worth of bribes to at least one Chinese government official.

The indictment mentioned the accounts of Alameda Research, SBF’s hedge fund, as a target for a freezing order from the Chinese police around November 2021.

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SBF and others, at that time, transferred at least $40 million in cryptocurrency to a CCP official. The transfer was intended to benefit one or more Chinese government officials to get them to unfreeze some of the accounts.

In addition, they tried “numerous methods” to unfreeze the accounts that held about $1 billion worth of crypto. After both personal and legal efforts failed, SBF directed the bribe to retain the accounts.

The funds were then used to keep Alameda’s loss-generating trades afloat, which the government said was fraud.

FTX bankruptcy case ongoing

FTX and Alameda collapsed in November 2022 when their finances raised concerns. SBF then faced federal indictment and civil charges from the commodity futures trading commission and the securities and exchange commission and was arrested.

The new evidence obtained by the federal government on SBF’s bribe comes a day after the U.S. regulators came for Binance with allegations of facilitating terrorist financing and U.S. derivatives law violations.

Meanwhile, FTX is still in bankruptcy court proceedings in Delaware.

So far, SBF has agreed to new bail conditions with the U.S. prosecutors, which limits his technology access, based on documents filed recently. Previously, judge Lewis Kaplan had shut down SBF’s electronic access.

Up to now, SBF has denied involvement in any charges brought against him, but the judge said he was not taking any chances.

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