Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been charged with yet another crime: bribery. In filed suit Tuesdaythe Justice Department alleges that Bankman-Fried “authorized and directed one or more Chinese government officials to bribe at least $40 million.”
The bribes were an alleged attempt to force Chinese officials to unblock some of the accounts of FTX’s sister company, Alameda, which hold more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency. According to the DOJ, this all happened in November 2021, at a time when Bankman-Fried wanted access to the funds to help Alameda “get and keep business.” The indictment says Bankman-Fried exhausted “numerous methods” in unblocking the funds before allegedly resorting to bribes that eventually led to the funds being unlocked.
“After confirming that the accounts had been unblocked, Bankman-Fried authorized the transfer of an additional tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to complete the bribe,” the indictment reads. “Alameda used the unfrozen cryptocurrency to fund additional Alameda trading activities.”
In addition to this latest bribery charge, Bankman-Fried’s new bail conditions dissuade the crypto founder from using a smartphone. His new non-smartphone doesn’t have access to the Internet or Signal, which Bankman-Fried allegedly tried to contact his colleagues with while on bail. Bankman-Fried will also have to hand over his existing laptop, which will be “configured to only allow access” to specific websites, such as YouTube, Wikipedia and Netflix – so no more League of Legends.
