FTX’s Bankman-Fried to agree to extradition to US: reports

Disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to agree to extradition to the U.S., where he faces eight charges, multiple outlets reported.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last week as a federal court in Manhattan indicted the cryptocurrency mogul on wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud, among other charges, following the collapse and bankruptcy of FTX.

He faces allegations that largely center on his company’s purported use of customer deposits at FTX to bankroll his own hedge fund, called Alameda Research. 

The scrutiny has led to separate complaints from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Bankman-Fried has spent the past week in the Bahamas’s Fox Hill prison, which has a reputation for unsanitary conditions and overcrowding.

His reported move to not contest extradition, which was first reported by Reuters, would pave the way for him to return to the U.S. and face charges filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The Hill has reached out to Bankman-Fried’s attorneys for comment. Sources told ABC News he could waive extradition as soon as a court hearing Monday.

The indictment alleges Bankman-Fried knowingly devised a scheme “to defraud customers of FTX.com by misappropriating those customers’ deposits and using those deposits to pay expenses and debts of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s proprietary crypto hedge fund, and to make investments.”

The Department of Justice has also alleged that Bankman-Fried violated federal campaign finance laws by making contributions to candidates reported in the name of another person.