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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Io Dodds and Maroosha Muzaffar

Sam Bankman-Fried arrested - latest: FTX founder arrested in Bahamas as US debates fraud case

Former FTX chief executive Samuel Bankman-Fried testifies before the US Senate on 9 February 2022 (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Disgraced cryptocurrency baron Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested in The Bahamas on behalf of the US government, officials said.

Prosecutors in New York City announced last evening that Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, had been arrested by local authorites on the basis of a sealed indictment from their office.

The attorney general of The Bahamas confirmed that in a letter, saying it was expecting a US extradiction request and would consider it in accordance with Bahamian law.

Fortune reported last week that US prosecutors were mulling fraud charges against Mr Bankman-Fried, and examining the financial transfers he made as FTX tipped into insolvency.

It comes after six weeks of financial chaos that took down the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange and humbled its colourful 30-year-old founder, known as SBF.

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