Former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has been slapped with another lawsuit from the Department of Justice (DOJ) for sending millions of dollars in bribe money to Chinese government officials
The department claims that the bribe, worth $40 million, was to induce the government to unfreeze accounts connected to FTX’s sister trading firm, Alameda Research.
SBF Bribing China
In an updated, superseding indictment shared Tuesday, the DOJ alleged that SBF “directed and caused the transfer of at least $40 million in cryptocurrency” to unfreeze Alameda’s accounts, to the benefit of “one or more Chinese government officials.”
This comes atop 12 previous allegations from the department against Bankman-Fried, including wire fraud, commodities fraud, bank fraud, and others.
According to the filing, Alameda’s accounts were frozen by Chinese police “in or around November 2021,” and held upwards of $1 billion in crypto. CNBC stated that prosecutors tried “numerous methods” to unfreeze those accounts, only to resort to bribery after all other options were exhausted.
