According to Reuters, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has applied for bail in the Bahamas Supreme Court.
This information was provided on Thursday by a person supposedly familiar with the case following a magistrate judge’s denial of the former cryptocurrency mogul’s bail application on Tuesday.
Also on Thursday, the Bahamas broadcaster Eyewitness News reported that the Supreme Court would hear the bail application on January 17, but they did not provide any sources for their information.
Bankman-Fried was remanded to a Bahamas prison facility after Chief Magistrate JoyAnn Ferguson-Pratt refused to grant him bail, citing the increased likelihood that he would flee the country.
A few hours after a federal criminal indictment against Bankman-Fried in the United States was unsealed in New York City, the magistrate ruled that he should be remanded to the custody of the Bahamas until February 8, 2023. The indictment alleges that fraud on a global scale occurred at FTX during Bankman-Fried’s tenure as CEO.
Sam Bankman-Fried was taken into custody by law enforcement authorities in the Bahamas on Monday evening. This arrest was in response to a request from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The former billionaire was accused of engaging in extensive acts of fraud and deception, which were revealed by regulators from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, respectively.
Bankman-Fried was charged with multiple counts in federal court, including wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and violations of campaign financing laws.
Prosecutors in the United States allege that Bankman-Fried participated in a scheme to defraud customers by misappropriating their deposits. These funds were used to cover expenses and debts, as well as to make investments on behalf of Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.
Bankman-Fried amassed a fortune of more than $20 billion by riding the cryptocurrency boom to establish FTX as one of the world’s largest exchanges before the company went bankrupt last month.
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