The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office stated Tuesday it had created an FTX Task Force to hint and recover property of victims of the cryptocurrency alternate agency’s collapse and to deal with investigations and prosecutions associated to the corporate and different entities.
The announcement got here as FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried appeared in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to plead not guilty in his felony case, the place he’s charged with a number of counts of monetary fraud and marketing campaign finance crimes.
“The Southern District of New York is working around the clock to respond to the implosion of FTX,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated in a press release.
“It is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Williams added.
“We are launching the SDNY FTX Task Force to ensure that this urgent work continues, powered by all of SDNY’s resources and expertise, until justice is done,” he stated.
Williams’ prime deputy, Andrea Griswold, is main the task force, which can draw prosecutors from the Securities and Commodities Fraud, Public Corruption, and Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises items.
Former FTX chief government Sam Bankman-Fried (C) arrives to enter a plea earlier than US District Judge Lewis Kaplan within the Manhattan federal court docket, New York, January 3, 2023.
Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Images
The Securities and Exchange Commission has estimated that prospects misplaced greater than $eight billion as a results of fraud at FTX and Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research.
When FTX filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety in November, it claimed to have greater than 100,000 collectors, and liabilities of between $10 billion and $50 billion, in contrast with property in an similar vary.
The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried is free however beneath home arrest at his mother and father’ residence, on a $250 million private recognizance bond, which was set after he was extradited from the Bahamas late final month.
Two of his lieutenants pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court docket to a number of counts of fraud earlier than he was extradited: Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old former CEO of Alameda, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, 29.
Both Ellison and Wang are cooperating within the investigation of Bankman-Fried and associated FTX issues.