Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which faced a colossal collapse this year, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday, and is facing criminal charges in the United States, according to a Bahamian official.
The Attorney General of the Bahamas, through spokesman Latrae Rahming, posted a statement on Twitter detailing the arrest. Bankman-Fried, commonly known as SBF, lives in the Bahamas, where the cryptocurrency exchange was also based.
“SBF’s arrest followed receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition,” the statement reads.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York later tweeted that his office had filed a sealed indictment, which led to the arrest.
“We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” Damian Williams said in a tweet from the office’s official Twitter account.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are investigating the company, and the New York Times reported last week that Manhattan-based federal prosecutors are investigating whether Bankman-Fried steered prices of cryptocurrencies TerraUSD and Luna to benefit FTX and his Alameda hedge fund. The former chief executive of FTX was expected to testify remotely in front of a House Financial Services Committee panel on Tuesday.
FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, filed for bankruptcy protection in November, and Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO. The new CEO of FTX, John J. Ray III, is expected to testify in front of members of Congress on Tuesday, and in prepared remarks released Monday, he said that Bankman-Fried’s management of FTX was an “utter failure” that lacked any level of financial control.
MarketWatch staff writer Robert Schroeder contributed to this article.