WASHINGTON — Federal authorities are set to whisk Sam Bankman-Fried to the U.S. on Wednesday to face a range of criminal charges related to the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.
Bankman-Fried signed his surrender documents on Tuesday, according to Bahamas Acting Commissioner of Corrections Doan Cleare. He’ll sign a separate set of papers finalizing his waiver of rights to fight extradition at the Magistrate’s Court in Nassau on Wednesday.
After that the FTX co-founder will be accompanied by FBI agents on a non-commercial aircraft back to the U.S., according to a person familiar with the matter. The plane will leave from a private airport in the island nation, said another person, who also asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the plans.
His return to the U.S. will cap a tumultuous week filled with speculation around when Bankman-Fried might return to face charges including fraud. Since being denied bail at an initial court hearing last week, Bankman-Fried has been held in a notorious correctional facility on the outskirts of Nassau known as Fox Hill.
While the arrangements could still change, plans call for Bankman-Fried to be escorted by Bahamian officers from the prison to the court Wednesday morning.
Although he initially said that he would fight extradition, Bankman-Fried has more recently indicated in private conversations that he was preparing to return to the U.S. as soon as Monday, Bloomberg News has reported. The change in attitude was in part tied to the expectation that he’ll be able to get bail in the U.S.
It wasn’t immediately clear which American airport Bankman-Fried would land at. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York last week unsealed an eight-count indictment against him.
