(Provides particulars of recent prices)
NEW YORK, March 28 (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a brand new indictment in opposition to Sam Bankman-Fried, charging the founding father of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency change with conspiring to violate anti-bribery provisions of the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Bankman-Fried of directing the switch of at the least $40 million of cryptocurrency to learn Chinese language authorities officers.
They stated Bankman-Fried directed the bribe with a view to unfreeze accounts belonging to his hedge fund, Alameda Analysis, that Chinese language authorities had frozen. The accounts held greater than $1 billion of cryptocurrency, U.S. prosecutors stated.
The accounts had been unfrozen after the bribe fee was transferred round November 2021 from Alameda’s most important buying and selling account to a personal cryptocurrency pockets, in response to the brand new indictment.
After the accounts had been unfrozen, Bankman-Fried approved a switch of tens of tens of millions of {dollars} of further cryptocurrency to finish the bribe, prosecutors stated.
A spokesman for Bankman-Fried didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
U.S. District Decide Lewis Kaplan scheduled a court docket listening to for Thursday after prosecutors requested for Bankman-Fried to be arraigned on the brand new, 13-count indictment.
The brand new cost will increase the strain on the 31-year-old former billionaire, who had beforehand pleaded not responsible to eight counts over the collapse of FTX. Prosecutors say Bankman-Fried stole billions of {dollars} in buyer funds to plug losses Alameda.
Prosecutors final month unveiled 4 new counts in opposition to Bankman-Fried, accusing him of orchestrating an unlawful marketing campaign donation scheme to purchase affect in Washington, D.C. He has not but been arraigned on the brand new prices.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Stempel in New York; enhancing by Jonathan Oatis and Nick Zieminski)