Sam Bankman-Fried is accused of sending a $40 million bribe to Chinese officials

Sam Bankman-Fred, founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been charged with another crime: bribery. in An indictment was filed on TuesdayThe Department of Justice alleges that Bankman-Fried “allowed and directed a bribe of at least $40 million to one or more Chinese government officials.”

The bribery was an alleged attempt to force Chinese officials to unfreeze some accounts linked to FTX’s sister company, Alameda, which contained more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency. According to the DOJ, this all happened in November 2021, around the time Bankman-Fried wanted access to the funds in order to help Alameda “get and keep business.” The indictment said Bankman-Fried used “numerous methods” when trying to unfreeze the funds before allegedly resorting to bribery that eventually led to the unlocking of the funds.

“After confirming that the accounts were unfrozen, Bankman-Fried authorized the transfer of tens of millions of additional dollars in cryptocurrency to complete the bribery,” the indictment read. “Alameda used unfrozen cryptocurrency to fund additional Alameda trading activity.”

In addition to the recent bribery charge, Bankman-Fried’s New warranty terms The founder of the cryptocurrency was banned from using a smartphone. His new not-so-smartphone wouldn’t have access to the internet or the Signal app, which Bankman-Fried used He allegedly tried to contact colleagues with while out on bail. Bankman-Fried will also have to power up his laptop, which will be “configured to allow access” only to specific websites, such as YouTube, Wikipedia, and Netflix – meaning no more. league of legends.