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The Bahamas police have arrested former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, 30.

The country’s attorney general said in a statement on Monday, Dec. 12 that the Bahamas has received formal notification from the United States of criminal charges against him, BBC reported.

Bankman-Fried is expected to be extradited to the US, Reuters reported.

The attorney general’s office for the Bahamas declined to comment on what the charges were though.

In a statement released on Twitter, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, confirmed Bankman-Fried’s arrest.

Williams said the related indictment would be unsealed on Tuesday morning (Wednesday Singapore time).

“[We] will have more to say at that time,” he said.

USA Damian Williams: Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.

— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) December 12, 2022

Busy making comments since collapse

Bankman-Fried had been expected to make his first public appearance before U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday, Dec. 13, since FTX’s collapse.

The former wunderkind has been occupied giving media interviews and talks after the collapse of FTX.

Even throughout the collapse, his Twitter account was active.

He was also tweeting just hours before his arrest.

Earlier in the day, he had said he would be “calling in” from the Bahamas to the hearing before the House financial services committee.

Bankman-Fried even said during a Twitter Spaces event on Monday with Twitter account Unusual Whales, that it was difficult for him “to move right now and travel because the paparazzi effect is quite large”.

The former FTX CEO would not be appearing at the hearing before lawmakers as a result of his arrest.

The committee would still hear from John Ray III, FTX’s new chief executive.

Ray is a veteran bankruptcy expert who oversaw the aftermath of the collapsed energy giant Enron.

He has called FTX an “unprecedented and complete failure of corporate controls”, the likes of which he has not seen in his 40-year career.

Background

FTX filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in November 2022, leaving many users unable to withdraw their funds.

Bankman-Fried then resigned as chief executive.

One of the most serious allegations against him is that he used billions of dollars of customer funds to sustain his investment trading company, Alameda.

Traders rushed to withdraw US$6 billion (S$8.14 billion) from the platform in just 72 hours, triggering a liquidity crisis and a run on the exchange as held assets were nowhere close to the amount called back.

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