Samuel Bankman-Fried.
Jabin Botsford/Getty Images
The SEC on Tuesday said in a complaint it charged Samuel Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors.
The SEC accused Bankman-Fried of “orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud.”
Bankman-Fried was earlier arrested in the Bahamas based on a “sealed indictment” from US authorities.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday announced it has charged Samuel Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors in FTX, his crypto trading platform.
In its complaint, the SEC accuses Bankman-Fried of “orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud” by diverting “billions of dollars” of FTX’s customer funds for “his own personal benefit and to help grow his crypto empire.”
The SEC accused the disgraced crypto founder of using the funds from customers to make “undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations,” per the complaint.
The SEC said in its complaint that Bankman-Fried hid this information from equity investors of FTX. The commission said his statements about customer assets being safe and secure were “false and misleading.”
“We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” SEC chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.
Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday based on a “sealed indictment” from US authorities, the US Attorney’s Office Southern District of New York announced on social media.
More follows …