U.S. federal prosecutors have seized almost US$700 million in property from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in January, largely within the type of Robinhood inventory, in line with a Friday court docket submitting.
Bankman-Fried, who has been accused of stealing billions of {dollars} from FTX clients to pay money owed incurred by his crypto-focused hedge fund, has pleaded not responsible to fraud expenses. He’s scheduled to face trial in October.
The Division of Justice revealed the seizure of Robinhood shares earlier this month, nevertheless it offered a extra full checklist of seized property Friday, together with money held at varied banks and property deposited at crypto change Binance.
The possession of the seized Robinhood shares, valued at about US$525 million, has been the topic of disputes between Bankman-Fried, FTX, and bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi.
The latest asset seizure reported by the DOJ came about on Thursday, when prosecutors seized US$94.5 million in money from an account at Silvergate Financial institution which was related to FTX Digital Markets, FTX’s subsidiary within the Bahamas. The DOJ seized greater than US$7 million from different Silvergate accounts related to Bankman-Fried and FTX.
The DOJ beforehand seized almost US$50 million from an FTX Digital Markets account at Moonstone Financial institution, a small financial institution in Washington state.
DOJ additionally mentioned that property in three Binance accounts related to Bankman-Fried had been topic to felony forfeiture, however didn’t present an estimate of the worth in these accounts.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Enhancing by Noeleen Walder and Daniel Wallis)
