Former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried (C) arrives to enter a plea before US District Judge Lewis Kaplan within the Manhattan federal court, Latest York, January 3, 2023.Â
Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Images
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office said Tuesday it had created an FTX Task Force to trace and recuperate assets of victims of the cryptocurrency exchange firm’s collapse and to handle investigations and prosecutions related to the corporate and other entities.
The announcement got here as FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried appeared in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to plead not guilty in his criminal case, where he’s charged with multiple counts of economic fraud and campaign finance crimes.
“The Southern District of Latest York is working across the clock to answer the implosion of FTX,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press release.
“It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Williams added.
“We’re launching the SDNY FTX Task Force to be certain that this urgent work continues, powered by all of SDNY’s resources and expertise, until justice is completed,” he said.
Williams’ top deputy, Andrea Griswold, is leading the duty force, which can draw prosecutors from the Securities and Commodities Fraud, Public Corruption, and Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises units.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has estimated that customers lost greater than $8 billion in consequence of fraud at FTX and Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.
When FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, it claimed to have greater than 100,000 creditors, and liabilities of between $10 billion and $50 billion, compared with assets in an analogous range.
The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried is free but under house arrest at his parents’ residence, on a $250 million personal recognizance bond, which was set after he was extradited from the Bahamas late last month.
Two of his lieutenants pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to multiple counts of fraud before he was extradited: Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old former CEO of Alameda, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, 29.
Each Ellison and Wang are cooperating within the investigation of Bankman-Fried and related FTX matters.
