Robinhood shares arrested-U. S. Department of Justice
2023.01.09 14:06
Robinhood shares arrested-U. S. Department of Justice
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – As part of the criminal cases against FTX and its executives, the United States Department of Justice has officially informed the bankruptcy court that it has seized assets.
The Justice Department claimed in a court filing on January 6 that it had seized 55,273,469 shares of Robinhood, which were claimed by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, BlockFi, and FTX creditor Yonathan Ben Shimon. At the time of publication, the stock was worth more than $450 million. The DOJ noted that it had also acquired control of more than $20 million in U.S. currency from ED&F Man Capital Markets, a brokerage firm.
As part of the case against FTX, reports from January 4 suggested that the Justice Department was preparing to seize the shares of Robinhood. On January 5, Bankman-Fried’s legal team said that the DOJ had decided to seize the shares. However, they still said that the former FTX CEO had a claim to the assets “to pay for his criminal defense.”
According to the court filing, “the charges in the Indictment arise from an alleged wide-ranging scheme by the defendant to misappropriate billions of dollars of customer funds deposited onto FTX,” which is an international cryptocurrency exchange founded by Bankman-Fried.
The Indictment contains forfeiture allegations, requesting the forfeiture of property derived from the proceeds of the conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the conspiracy to commit money laundering, and the conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges in December, including wire fraud and violating campaign finance laws after being arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the United States.
Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX, have already admitted to related charges. The criminal trial against SBF is expected to start in October.
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Separate from the criminal cases, bankruptcy proceedings for FTX are also ongoing, and the next public hearing is scheduled for January 11. As a lot of customers try to get their money back, parties representing FTX debtors have also pointed to assets related to the crypto exchange and its former executives.
