FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Was Arrested in Bahamas and Charged by the SEC

I just want this story to come to an end, have SBF pay for his crimes, and justice for the everyone who was affect by this debacle. Well, It looks like the final chapter in the SBF-FTX story is finally in as Bankman-Fried has officially been arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police Force after the US filed criminal charges. It is expected that the US will soon request the extradition of SBF. The potential charges include wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering and related conspiracy charges.

In addition to this, Bahamas Prime Minister, Philip Davis, said that the country will continue its own investigation into FTX’s collapse, alongside the US’s criminal charges and the first day in court for the CEO who “misaccounted” $8 billion U.S. dollars is next Tuesday. After SBF tried his best to be perceived as incapable as a human could be, a new CEO, John J, Ray III swoops in to effectively pick up the pieces and figure out a way to end this mess. The first order of business for new CEO, who also managed the liquidation of energy company Enron, was to file for bankruptcy. Naturally, this meant digging into the company financials and other aspects. It was him that said that he had never seen anything quite like the corporate governance and documentation failures that he found at FTX. He also found that FTX had heavily commingled customer and corporate assets, resulting in billions of dollars being lost, or as SBF prefers — “misaccounted”.

In the aftermath of FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried went on a press tour and spoke to various news outlets, including The New York Times and New York Magazine. He also participated in a live Forbes interview earlier on the day of his arrest, still claiming that it was all just a huge mistake and he is in fact innocent and fighting hard to get his users funds back. SBF has one script and sticks to it religiously.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has now officially charged SBF with defrauding investors.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Samuel Bankman-Fried with orchestrating a scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX Trading Ltd. (FTX),”

— SEC announced today, December 13. It alleges that SBF violated anti-fraud provisions of both the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 and 1934. The satement also mentions other securities violations as well as investigations into other individuals close to SBF.

There you have it, SBF was arrested and charged with defrauding investors, the SEC, and Bahamian Royal Police are on it and it looks like SBF may very well be facing a potentially long time behind bars. Ultimately, I’m glad this mess and circus that SBF created has come to an end. Even if people are not going to get their money back, and I don’t believe they will, at least this brings some form of closure to this unsavoury saga.

Ultimately, this will have been of no consequence for the crypto industry, and the space will continue to grow undisturbed.

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