The federal government this month seized more than $600 million in assets from disgraced cryptocurrency executive Sam-Bankman Fried, according to a new court filing.
The seizures are part of the criminal case against 30-year-old Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges related to allegedly stealing billions of dollars from customers and investors of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, which he founded has .
Federal prosecutors on Friday produced a list of assets that could be confiscated based on the charges, including cash in various banks and accounts and more than 55 million Robinhood shares.
The latest seizure came on Thursday when the government seized $94,570,490.63 in US currency held at Silvergate Bank, according to the filing. Several Binance accounts were also seized, the filing shows, although their assets were not included.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, charged with fraud over the collapse of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, arrives on January 3, 2023 for the day of a hearing in Manhattan Federal Court in New York City.
David Dee Delgado/Portal, FILE
Bankman-Fried was charged with eight counts of fraud and conspiracy. Federal prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of orchestrating one of the “largest financial scams in American history” by funneling billions of FTX client and investor funds to his privately controlled hedge fund Alameda Research.
Other funds were used to buy lavish real estate and make tens of millions of dollars in political donations, court documents say.
He is expected to appear in court in October.
Bankman-Fried was extradited from the Bahamas on December 21, where he resided in a multimillion-dollar mansion.
Before his arrest last month, Bankman-Fried insisted in numerous interviews, including one with ABC News, that he was unaware of any misappropriation of FTX client funds.
In the ABC News interview, Bankman-Fried told George Stephanopoulos that he only had an ATM card and “$100,000 left over in my bank account.”
“That’s honestly, to my knowledge, I have,” he said.