FTX founder accused of funneling $40M in bribes to Chinese officials

The United States Attorney's office has filed a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, for bribing $40 million to Chinese officials to unfreeze the accounts of his Alameda hedge fund.

This accusation was the 13th in a row imposed on the former billionaire in connection with the collapse of FTX in November. 

Earlier, prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars from client funds to cover the losses of his hedge fund Alameda Research, as well as organizing an illegal campaign donation scheme for lobbying in Washington.

According to the new charge, Bankman-Fried ordered the transfer of $40 million worth of cryptocurrency to a private wallet from the main Alameda trading account in order to convince the Chinese authorities to unfreeze Alameda accounts with cryptocurrency worth more than $1 billion. Alameda's accounts were frozen due to an investigation into a certain Alameda counterparty, and previous attempts to lobby Chinese officials to cancel such a measure were unsuccessful.

The businessman has pleaded not guilty to 8 of the 13 charges he faced, and has not yet been brought to justice on charges of campaign finance or bribery conspiracy. Bankman-Fried pleaded guilty only to inadequate risk management at FTX, denying stealing money.

At the same time, three former members of his inner circle, former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, former FTX technical director Zixiao Wang and former FTX technical director Nishad Singh, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the prosecutor's office.