Despite Sam Bankman-Fried being in prison for almost a year, the US government continues to try to confiscate cryptocurrency associated with his activities.
On Tuesday, November 12, US prosecutors filed a lawsuit in a New York court demanding the return of digital assets that FTX management used to pay bribes to a Chinese official. The funds in question are cryptocurrency. Solana , Cardano , Ripple , Internet Computer and Avalanche, which are held on the exchange Binance and are currently valued at approximately $18,5 million.
Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges of using FTX clients' assets for personal gain, including buying luxury real estate, making political donations, and making risky investments. Interestingly, the charge of bribing foreign officials was dropped.
However, prosecutors say that in early 2021, Chinese law enforcement authorities froze $1 billion in accounts held by FTX subsidiary Alameda Research on two local crypto exchanges. To get the assets back, Sam Bankman-Fried offered Chinese officials a bribe of Tether in the amount of $40 million. Shortly thereafter, the Alameda accounts were unfrozen.
After confirming that the accounts had been unfrozen, Bankman-Fried authorized additional payments of tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to complete the bribe payments, prosecutors said.
In her testimony, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison said the total bribe amounted to $150 million.
