(BBC News) Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of failed crypto firm FTX, has been accused of bribing at least one Chinese official.
In new charges unveiled in the U.S., officials accuse the entrepreneur of authorizing a bribe of “at least $40 million” to try to gain access to trading accounts frozen by Chinese authorities.
The allegations add to the fraud case filed last year after FTX’s collapse. Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to those claims earlier this year.
He is under house arrest at his parents’ home in California while awaiting trial.
The updated indictment says Bankman-Fried authorized the bribe after Chinese authorities froze accounts holding roughly $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency that belonged to his trading firm, Alameda Research.
The accounts were released after the transfer, which went to a private cryptocurrency wallet, according to the filing.
The alleged bribe followed months of other efforts to access the funds, which Bankman-Fried believed were frozen as part of an investigation into another trading firm, it said.
The incident happened before FTX’s dramatic collapse last year, when reports about the company’s finances led to a rush of withdrawals, pushing the firm into bankruptcy.
In the wake of the collapse, which left many people unable to access their funds, the U.S. filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried, accusing him of improperly using customer deposits at FTX to fund his other firm, Alameda Research, buy property, and make millions in political donations.
Bankman-Fried has acknowledged lapses in management, but denied fraud. Three of his closest colleagues have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with investigators.
