Former FTX chief govt Sam Bankman-Fried (C) arrives to enter a plea earlier than US District Choose Lewis Kaplan within the Manhattan federal court docket, New York, January 3, 2023.
Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Pictures
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office stated Tuesday it had created an FTX Activity Drive to hint and get well property of victims of the cryptocurrency trade agency’s collapse, and to deal with investigations and prosecutions associated to the corporate and different entities.
The announcement got here as FTX’s founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried appeared in U.S. District Court docket in Manhattan to plead not guilty in his prison case, the place he’s charged with a number of counts of monetary fraud and marketing campaign finance crimes.
“The Southern District of New York is working across the clock to reply to the implosion of FTX,” Manhattan U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams stated in a press release.
“It’s an all-hands-on-deck second,” Williams added.
“We’re launching the SDNY FTX Activity Drive to make sure that this pressing work continues, powered by all of SDNY’s sources and experience, till justice is finished,” he stated.
William’s high deputy Andrea Griswold is main the duty, which is able to draw prosecutors from his Securities and Commodities Fraud, Public Corruption, and Cash Laundering and Transnational Legal Enterprises models.
The Securities and Alternate Fee has estimated that clients misplaced greater than $8 billion on account of fraud at FTX and Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Analysis.
When FTX filed for Ch. 11 chapter safety in November, it claimed to have greater than 100,000 collectors, and liabilities of between $10 billion and $50 billion, in comparison with property in an an identical vary.
The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried is free, however below home arrest at his mother and father’ residence, on a $250 million private recognizance bond, which was set after he was extradited from the Bahamas late final month.
Two of his lieutenants pleaded responsible in Manhattan federal court docket to a number of counts of fraud earlier than 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 associated FTX issues.
