The Bahamas police have arrested Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the country’s attorney general has said.
He will appear in a magistrates court in The Bahamas on Tuesday, authorities in the Caribbean country said.
Police said Bankman-Fried was arrested for “Financial Offences” against laws in the US and The Bahamas.
Last month FTX filed for bankruptcy in the US, leaving many users unable to withdraw their funds.
It is unclear how much people who have funds in the exchange will get back at the end of bankruptcy proceedings, though many experts have warned it may be a small fraction of what they had deposited.
The FTX exchange allowed customers to trade normal money for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Bankman-Fried will be held in custody “pursuant of our nation’s Extradition Act,” the Attorney General of the Bahamas said in a statement.
“Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the US Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY [Southern District of New York]. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan said in a tweet.
Wall Street regulators also said that they would be taking action against Bankman-Fried.
“We commend our law enforcement partners for working to secure the arrest of Mr Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas on federal criminal charges,” US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission has separately authorised charges relating to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s violations of our securities laws, which will be filed publicly tomorrow in the Southern District of New York,” he added.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyer did not immediately reply to a BBC request for comment. (BBC)
