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The Bahamas wants the US government to return 35 different properties worth more than $256 million. Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month.
Attorneys representing the Bahamian government told a federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware that Bankman-Fried and Ryan Salem, his co-CEO at the time, Amassed a large real estate portfolio Across New Providence Island in the Bahamas.
Bahamas representatives told the judge that allowing US bankruptcy proceedings to administer the assets is illegal under Bahamian law. According to CNBC.
The Bahamian government wants the judge to dismiss the bankruptcy proceedings against the FTX subsidiary listed as the owner of the assets.
“Bahamian law does not allow a Bahamian company to recognize a foreign bankruptcy,” the island nation’s lawyers told the judge.
But Bankman-Fried’s successor CEO, John Ray, installed in the role of overseeing the company’s bankruptcy restructuring, is likely to resist any attempt by the Bahamian government to gain control over the assets.
Ray told the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday that FTX is seeking to recover more than $7 billion in funds it can return to investors — a process that could take weeks, if not months.
“At the end of the day, we can’t recover all the losses here,” Ray said Tuesday.
“So much money was spent that we will never get back.”
Banker-Fry He was arrested by Bahamian authorities on Monday evening at the request of the United States Government. He is being held in a prison in Nassau, the Bahamian capital.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed the indictment against Bankman-Fried, who faces charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
They allege that Bankman-Fried “devised a scheme and artifice” to defraud FTX’s customers and investors since 2019.
He diverted their money to cover expenses, loans and risky trades at his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, and made lavish real estate purchases and large political donations, prosecutors said in a 13-page indictment.
If convicted, he faces a maximum of 100 years in federal prison.
Banker-Fry He has said that he will fight against deportation For the US, this will delay the process by a few weeks, according to legal experts.
Under Bankman-Fried’s watch, FTX spent lavishly on expensive real estate for co-CEOs and other top executives at the company.
Bankman-Fried’s parents — Stanford University law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried — Listed as the owners of the $16 million luxury property They used it as a “holiday home”.
A spokesman for the couple said they began the process of returning the property to FTX before the company filed for bankruptcy.
With post wires
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