Former FTX CEO SBF Faces Possibility of Extradition to US for Questioning

Amidst speculation over Sam Bankman-Fried’s whereabouts, the authorities are mulling over extraditing the former CEO of the bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX, back to the United States.

According to the latest Bloomberg report, law-enforcement officials in the US and Bahamas have been engaged in talks over SBF as they investigate his role in FTX’s implosion. People familiar with the matter said that Bankman-Fried has been cooperating with Bahamian authorities.

• The Bahamian securities regulators and financial investigators have launched a probe into the fall of FTX and are looking for potential criminal misconduct by its operators.
• Even though none of the execs, including SBF, have been charged with anything yet, many speculate that his behavior, as well as FTX’s business practices, demonstrated fraud.
• A former deputy attorney general believes the US Justice Department, which recently opened an investigation into the matter, could bring criminal charges against the once-crypto billionaire.
• The potential extradition development comes after reports of the disgraced exec running off to South America surfaced. FlightRadar24 tweeted last week that SBF was flying from Nassau to Argentina.
• But Argentina does not make for an ideal destination to evade authorities in the US. SBF later told Reuters that he is still in the Bahamas.
• It was also reported that the SBF, along with FTX co-founder Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh, was in the Bahamas “under supervision” by the local authorities.
• Bankman-Fried stepped down as the chief executive of the FTX group as part of a bankruptcy filing. He apologized to users and vowed to make them “whole.”
• On Tuesday, he posted that he was meeting with regulators and wanted to help FTX customers.
• Bitcoin bull and executive chairman of MicroStrategy lashed out at Bankman-Fried for lobbying against “all of the virtues of the industry,” including bitcoin, by leveraging counterfeit finances and bribing certain individuals.