NEW YORK (AP) โ FTX founder Sam Bankman-fried was accused of sending $40 million in bribes to one or more Chinese officials to unfreeze assets related to his cryptocurrency business in a newly rewritten indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The count of conspiring to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act brings to 13 the number of charges Bankman-Fried faces after he was arrested in the Bahamas in December and brought to the United States shortly thereafter.
READ MORE: FTX Founder Bankman-Fried Faces Trial, Keeps Talking
FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, when it ran out of money after the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run. has remained free in a $250 million bond of personal recognition that allows him to stay with his parents in Palo Alto, California.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of defrauding investors out of billions of dollars before his business collapsed.
The alleged bribes arose from the operation of Alameda Research, which is affiliated with FTX, Bankman-Fried's global cryptocurrency exchange.
The indictment says Chinese law enforcement authorities in early 2021 froze certain of Alameda's cryptocurrency trading accounts at two of China's largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The accounts, he said, contained about $1 billion in cryptocurrency.
Bankman-Fried understood that the accounts had been frozen by Chinese authorities as part of an ongoing investigation of a private Alameda business counterparty, according to the indictment.
After Bankman-Fried failed in several attempts to unfreeze the accounts through the use of lawyers and lobbying, Bankman-Fried finally agreed to direct a multi-million dollar bribe to try to unfreeze the accounts, according to the indictment.
The cryptocurrency bribe payment of about $40 million was moved from Alameda's main business account to a private cryptocurrency wallet in November 2021 and the frozen accounts were unfrozen around the same time, according to the indictment.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Bankman-Fried's lawyers also sent Judge Lewis A. Kaplan a new order limiting him to one laptop and one phone and blocking him from using other cell phones, tablets, computers, video games or devices." smart" devices with Internet access other than electronic devices owned by your attorneys that you may need to prepare for trial.
Kaplan set a hearing for Thursday in the case.
