On Monday, court documents from lawyers involved in the FTX Trading LTD Chapter 11 bankruptcy case allege that the government of the Bahamas asked disgraced FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to mint new crypto tokens. The lawyers detailed that it was a “request for live, dynamic access that would be immediately granted to the Bahamian government and to gentlemen.”
Bahamas government accused of receiving special treatment from disgraced FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried
Following Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) arrest in the Bahamas, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged SBF with fraud over the FTX collapse. Furthermore, reports indicate that the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Attorney General and SDNY Attorney Damian Williams have also charged SBF with felonies.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan on Tuesday unsealed an eight-count indictment charging disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried with a multi-year scheme to siphon money out of the now-collapsed crypto exchange,” revealed law360.com court reporter Rachel Scharf. Tuesday. Further, court documents from the FTX Chapter 11 bankruptcy case indicate that the joint provisional liquidators of FTX Digital Markets filed a motion to dismiss the Chapter 11 case of FTX Property Holdings LTD.
Lawyers have also accused the Bahamas government of asking the SBF to create new digital tokens worth millions of US dollars. The tokens were allegedly given to Bahamian officials, FTX’s legal team said. FTX’s new CEO John J. Ray III and his team noticed that new tokens were being issued and suspected that SBF and FTX founder Gary Wang were the ringleaders working on orders originating from Bahamian officials. The news follows the strange relationship FTX officials such as exchange chief Ryan Salame had with vertical farming firms.
Ryan Salame and Bahamian Prime Minister (PM) Philip Davis visited Ohio to visit a business called 80 Acres Farms in January 2022. Furthermore, during his interview with Mario Nawfal’s Twitter Spaces crew, FTX co-founder SBF admitted withdrawals to Bahamian residents took place before FTX completely collapsed, and possibly on two occasions. SBF also described greenlighting Bahamian withdrawals in its two-part interview with Tiffany Fong (here and here). FTX’s US attorney said this week that SBF was negotiating with the Bahamian government and that $100 million per day in withdrawals were allegedly allowed by SBF.
Discussing the minting of new crypto tokens for the Bahamian government, the attorneys claim that SBF and Gary Wang worked closely with the officials prior to the bankruptcy filing on November 11, 2022. “It is a request for live, dynamic access that would be granted immediately to the Bahamian government and to Messrs. Samuel Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, who are located in the Bahamas and work closely with Bahamian officials,” FTX attorneys said in the lawsuit.
After the allegations have Securities Commission of the Bahamas issued a statement wholeheartedly denying FTX CEO John Ray’s claims published in the court documents. The Bahamas regulator said the allegations are intended “to create a false impression of the communications between Mr. Bankman-Fried and the Commission.”
Tags in this story
$100 million per day , 80 Acres Farms , Bahamian government , Bahamian officials , Bahamian prime minister , Bahamian withdrawal , Damian Williams , disgraced FTX co-founder , fraud , fraud allegations , FTX lawyers , FTX bankruptcy case , FTX Chapter 11 , FTX lawyers , Gary Wang, Manhattan US Attorney’s Office, Philip Davis., Ryan Salame, Sam Bankman-Fried, sbf, SEC, SEC charges
What do you think of the claims against the Bahamian officials? Do you think the SBF gave Bahamian officials special treatment? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial technology journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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