Bahamas Securities Commission Holding FTX deposits worth over $3.5 billion.
In the long and dark drama involving FTX and SBF, it seems that we have finally heard some positive news about the assets of users that the criminal mastermind used frivolously.
The Financial and Regulatory Authority of the Bahamas (Securities Commission of the Bahamas) announced on December 29 that it is temporarily holding $3.5 billion worth of FTX assets based on market prices at the time of the transfer in order to deliver them to customers and creditors who own them.
According to the statement released by the regulator, this was done out of concern that there was a risk of immediate dispersal of the assets due to concerns raised by Bankman-Fried, which included cyber attacks on the exchange.
According to an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court of the Bahamas by the commission’s executive director, Christina Rolle, Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang no longer had access to tokens that had been transferred or frozen once the transfer was complete.
The web of links between the now-defunct FTX.com, which is registered locally as FTX Digital Markets Ltd., and its trading subsidiary, Alameda Research, is currently being investigated by authorities in the Bahamas.
Shortly after the firm announced it would file for bankruptcy, the authorities in the Bahamas, where the company’s headquarters were located, appointed liquidators to wind up FTX’s worldwide trading activities.
Earlier this month, lawyers for cryptocurrency exchange FTX fought a demand for internal papers from its Bahamian firm. Their argument was that they did not trust the Bahamian authorities with information that could be used to steal assets from the insolvent company.
CFTC’s latest findings on FTX-Alameda
In a complaint filed Dec. 13 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, it is alleged that Bankman-Fried directed FTX officials to transfer about $8 billion in debt from Alameda to an unidentified client account on FTX’s computers.
According to the complaint, this enabled Alameda to hide its FTX deficit. But the account was excluded from liquidation features and had the same other benefits as Alameda accounts.
Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to seven counts of federal wire fraud on December 18. The charges against her included conspiracy to commit wire fraud on FTX clients and money laundering.
In addition, Gary Wang pleaded guilty to four counts of the same offences. Each of them faces several decades behind bars, and their arrest and imprisonment will hopefully lead to SBF’s own imprisonment and possibly imprisonment as well.
