SBF allegedly paid bribe worth $40M to Chinese officials

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX, is accused of bribing Chinese government officials with $40 million worth of crypto payments to unfreeze some company accounts containing over $1 billion in cryptocurrency.

The alleged bribes were offered when Chinese officials froze certain crypto trading accounts connected to his hedge fund, Almeda Research, in 2021.

Newly-rewritten indictments from the Justice Department allege that SBF tried “numerous methods” to get the Chinese officials to unfreeze Almeda’s trading accounts and finally succeeded by offering bribes.

The bribery charge raises SBF’s fraud charges to 13.

FTX’s founder was arrested in the Bahamas in December 2022. He is facing money laundering and fraud charges and is currently under house arrest.