- Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with a new bribery conspiracy charge, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
- He spent $40 million or more in crypto to "influence" Chinese officials, prosecutors said.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of fallen crypto exchange FTX, has been hit with a new bribery conspiracy charge.
Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of spending "at least" $40 million in crypto on "at least one or more Chinese government officials in order to influence them," according to an updated indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
A representative for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
In January, Bankman-Fried previously pleaded not guilty to the original 8-count indictment that prosecutors had filed back in December. Prosecutors have since hit him with additional charges, including in an earlier superseding indictment filed in February. Bankman-Fried hasn't entered a plea on the newer charges.
A representative for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which brought the charges in this case, declined to comment.
Prosecutors positioned their new charge against Bankman-Fried as part of a larger narrative about how they say the onetime crypto billionaire wielded his influence.
They alleged that this episode with Chinese officials began with a problem in 2021, when the trading accounts of Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried's other crypto company, was frozen on Chinese crypto exchanges amid a separate investigation there, according to the updated indictment.
Bankman-Fried then embarked on a mission that year to recover those funds, prosecutors said, ultimately carrying out what they alleged was a bribery scheme.
That scheme started with a $40 million transfer from Alameda to help "unfreeze" the accounts in China, prosecutors said, adding that it was followed by more payouts of "additional tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency."
Prosecutors have already leveled campaign finance charges against Bankman-Fried, alleging that he devised a scheme to make political donations to "curry favor with candidates" who could potentially help advance his interests in Washington, according to their indictment in February.
The DOJ has acted swiftly since FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, first bringing charges against Bankman-Fried in December to draw him back to the US from the Bahamas at the time, and securing plea deals with key players in his inner circle.
Alameda's former CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and former FTX chief engineer Nishad Singh are all cooperating with prosecutors.