FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Accused Of Bribing Chinese Officials With $40M In New Indictment

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday revealed a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the founder of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to bribe Chinese government officials with $40 million in payments.

Bankman-Fried directed the payment to unfreeze accounts belonging to his hedge fund, Alameda Research, which held over $1 billion of cryptocurrency that Chinese authorities had frozen, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan. 

The accounts were unfrozen after the bribe payment was transferred around November 2021 from Alameda's main trading account to a private cryptocurrency wallet, per the new indictment. 

Bankman-Fried then authorized the transfer of tens of millions of dollars of additional cryptocurrency to complete the bribe, prosecutors said.

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FTX Founder's Growing Legal Quagmire: The new charge is a serious blow to the former billionaire, who is already facing eight criminal counts over the collapse of FTX.

Prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried stole billions in customer funds to cover losses at Alameda.

While he has acknowledged inadequate risk management at FTX, he has denied stealing money.

The new count accuses Bankman-Fried of "conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to bribe foreign government officials to win business."

Bankman-Fried is confined to his parents' home in Palo Alto, California, on a $250-million bond ahead of his Oct. 2 trial.

His lawyers and prosecutors reached a new agreement on revised bail conditions on Monday after prosecutors raised concerns he may have been tampering with witnesses.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan scheduled a court hearing for Thursday after prosecutors asked for Bankman-Fried to be arraigned on the new 13-count indictment.

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