Sam Bankman-Fried’s belongings valued at nearly $700 million will likely be topic to forfeiture if he’s discovered responsible of fraud, in keeping with federal prosecutors main the case towards the FTX founder.
In a courtroom submitting Friday, the US Legal professional for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, outlined 10 accounts, with a mixture of shares, money and cryptocurrency topic to forfeiture.
The asset pool included about 55 million shares Bankman-Fried held in Robinhood Markets Inc. At Friday’s closing worth these shares had been valued at $526 million. The Division of Justice beforehand introduced it had seized the shares, which had been bought with a $456 million mortgage from Alameda Analysis, FTX’s sister buying and selling home.
The property topic to forfeiture additionally contains greater than $20 million held in an account within the identify of Emergent Constancy Applied sciences, the holding firm used to buy the shares, greater than $171 million in US foreign money in accounts below the identify FTX Digital Markets and belongings in three Binance accounts. The accounts containing money had been seized by the federal government between Jan. 4 and Jan. 19, in keeping with the submitting.
Prosecutors use forfeiture orders as a option to claw again belongings defendants obtained with ill-gotten features. In Bernie Madoff’s case, a choose ordered the late Ponzi schemer to forfeit greater than $170 billion and his spouse, $80 million. Ross Ulbricht, the founding father of the darkish internet bazaar Silk Street, was ordered at hand over about $28 million value of Bitcoin as a part of a 2014 forfeiture order.
Bankman-Fried has pleaded not responsible to an eight-count indictment, together with fraud and marketing campaign finance legislation violations. He’s accused of utilizing FTX buyer funds to prop up buying and selling at Alameda, pay for private bills and actual property. The 30-year-old is presently on bail after signing a $250 million package deal that successfully positioned him below home arrest at his mother and father’ residence in California.
FTX’s new administration, together with restructuring skilled John J. Ray III, have managed to trace down billions of {dollars} of belongings linked to the crypto empire as a part of chapter proceedings.
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