BAHAMAS, December 22. 2022– It had been thought the cryptocurrency tycoon, who founded the exchange FTX, would fight being sent to New York to face fraud charges. But he appeared in a Nassau court on Wednesday where he told a judge he waived his “right to such formal extradition proceedings”.
Sam Bankman-Fried has been extradited to the US from The Bahamas as he faces criminal charges relating to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Authorities in the Bahamas said the FTX founder had waived his right to challenge the extradition and Bankman-Fried was witnessed leaving a magistrate court in Nasssau in a dark SUV.
According to Reuters, a plane carrying the former chief executive departed the Bahamas from a private airfield by Nassau’s airport.
Bankman-Fried is due to land at Westchester County Airport in New York and will likely appear in front of a US judge later on Thursday.
It comes after two of his associates pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the FTX collapse.
Carolyn Ellison, former chief executive of Alameda Research – a trading firm started by Bankman-Fried – and Gary Wang, who co-founded FTX, pleaded guilty to charged “related to their role sin the fraud that contributed to FTX’s collapse”, US Attorney Damian Williams said.
Bankman-Fried had earlier decided to agree to extradition in part out of a “desire to make the relevant customers whole”, according to the affidavit, which is dated December 20th.
Rep. Tom Emmer, said on Twitter “The failure of FTX is not a failure of crypto, it is a failure of centralization.”
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Source: Sky News wrote the original article.