The USA Division of Justice has formally notified the court docket dealing with the chapter of BlockFi that it has seized property as a part of the legal circumstances in opposition to crypto change FTX and its executives.
In a Jan. 6 court docket submitting, the Justice Division mentioned it had seized 55,273,469 shares of Robinhood to which former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, BlockFi, and FTX creditor Yonathan Ben Shimon had beforehand made claims — the inventory was price greater than $450 million on the time of publication. The DOJ famous it had additionally taken management of greater than $20 million in U.S. forex from the brokerage agency ED&F Man Capital Markets.
Experiences from Jan. 4 had recommended the the Justice Division was within the strategy of seizing the Robinhood shares as a part of the case in opposition to FTX. Bankman-Fried’s authorized workforce confirmed on Jan. 5 the DOJ had moved ahead with seizing the shares, however nonetheless argued the previous FTX CEO had a declare to the property “to pay for his legal protection”.
“The fees within the Indictment come up from an alleged wide-ranging scheme by the defendant to misappropriate billions of {dollars} of buyer funds deposited onto FTX, the worldwide cryptocurrency change based by Bankman-Fried,” mentioned the court docket submitting. “The Indictment consists of forfeiture allegations, in search of to forfeit property that constitutes or was derived from proceeds traceable to the conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and property concerned within the conspiracy to commit cash laundering.”
Following his arrest within the Bahamas and extradition to the US in December, Bankman-Fried pled not responsible to eight legal prices together with wire fraud and violations of marketing campaign finance legal guidelines. Former Alameda Analysis CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang have already pled responsible to associated prices. SBF’s legal trial is scheduled to start in October.
Associated: US authorities launch web page to inform FTX’s alleged victims about SBF’s case
Chapter proceedings for FTX separate from the legal circumstances are additionally ongoing, with the following public listening to scheduled for Jan. 11. Events representing FTX debtors have additionally pointed to property related to the crypto change and its former executives as many shoppers look to get better misplaced and lacking funds.
