US lawmakers are outraged at the timing of Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest in The Bahamas — a day before he would testify to Congress.
Bankman-Fried said he would testify before Congress remotely from his home in The Bahamas because of “security concerns.”
Sam Bankman-Fried said in a Twitter Space that he wouldn’t fly to Washington, DC to testify in-person because he was “quite overbooked,” and concerned about “paparazzi.”
He was arrested on Monday and charged with eight counts of fraud and money laundering, along with other financial crimes.
Bankman-Fried made his first appearance at a court in Nassau on Tuesday. He told the court he will not waive his right to an extradition hearing.
“Mr. Bankman-Fried is reviewing the charges with his legal team and considering all of his legal options,” his lawyer, Mark S. Cohen, said in a statement.
Bankman-Fried’s arrest trended on Twitter on Monday night under the hashtag #ARRESTED.
According to an indictment that was unsealed Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York accused Bankman-Fried of knowingly defrauding customers out of billions of dollars by using their crypto investments to fund his lifestyle and to pay debts for another company he controlled.
Additionally, the SEC accused Bankman-Fried of commingling investor funds with his company Alameda Research. The funds were used to finance purchases of over $100 million in real estate in The Bahamas.
The unsealed indictment also accuses Bankman-Fried of violating political contribution laws by donating millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and committees in New York’s Southern District under another person’s name.
His arrest comes a month after Democrat Maxine Waters appeared to blow a kiss to him at a Congressional hearing in the days after the spectacular FTX collapse.
CAUGHT: Maxine Waters appears to blow a kiss at FTX’s chief fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried at a Congressional hearing while the cameras were still rolling
She’s the one who’s supposed to grill SBF next month?
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 18, 2022
The NBA’s Miami Heat announced it was terminating its contract with FTX and will remove the FTX name from the Miami arena.
The FTX debacle is being compared to the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
