700 million in assets can be confiscated from FTX
2023.01.21 03:33
700 million in assets can be confiscated from FTX
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – If he is found guilty of fraud, disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) will be subject to the forfeiture of approximately $700 million in assets, according to new court filings.
Damian Williams, a U.S. federal prosecutor, stated in a court document filed on January 20 that the “government respectfully gives notice that the property subject to forfeiture” includes a wide range of assets, including shares, crypto, and fiat money.
According to the filings, the government sought to claim “all monies and assets” from three distinct Binance accounts and seized the majority of the assets between January 4 and January 19.
The largest allocations, according to the list of seized assets, are 55,273,469 shares of Robinhood (HOOD) worth approximately $525.5 million at the time of writing, $94.5 million held by Silvergate Bank, $49.9 million held by Farmington State Bank, and $20.7 million held by ED&F Man Capital Markets, Inc.
In this case, the government has requested a forfeiture order because it claims that these assets were obtained illegally by using customer deposits.
Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, members of SBF’s inner circle, have admitted their roles in the collapse of FTX and cooperated with prosecutors, but the man has pleaded not guilty to all eight criminal charges.
In other FTX-related news, a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report from January 18 highlighted outdated marketing that the exchange released in Africa shortly before its November bankruptcy.
The aforementioned campaign talked about USD-pegged stablecoins as safer investments against inflation than local currencies and the possibility of earning 8% annually through staking rewards programs.
Despite the fact that African currencies like the Nigerian naira and the Ghanaian cedi have fallen against the United States dollar, any African FTX customer who was persuaded by the marketing lost money when the company went bankrupt.
According to Pius Okedinachi, a former education lead for Africa at FTX, the exchange managed approximately $500 million worth of monthly trading volume in Africa, with Nigeria accounting for the majority of that volume.
Notably, SBF also promoted FTX’s services to West Africa just eight days before the exchange filed for bankruptcy, announcing in a tweet on November 3 that the exchange had begun accepting deposits in West African CFA francs.
