Police in the Bahamas have arrested Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of bankrupt crypto firm FTX.
The country’s attorney general said the Bahamas received formal notification from the US that criminal charges have been filed against him there.
FTX, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in the States last month and Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive, triggering a wave of public demands for greater regulation of the cryptocurrency industry.
The distressed crypto trading platform struggled to raise money to stave off collapse as traders rushed to withdraw $6bn (£4.89bn) from the platform in just 72 hours.
More than one million customers worldwide were using his platform to buy assets like Bitcoin.
Bankman-Fried – known as ‘SBF’ – had become one of the biggest names in the crypto industry, with his company swooping in to save smaller firms after they were tipped into bankruptcy.
But in the space of just three days, a series of bombshell allegations led to the spectacular collapse of FTX and a bankruptcy of its own.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan confirmed Bankman-Fried had been arrested in The Bahamas but declined to comment on what the charges were.
“As a result of the notification received and the material provided therewith, it was deemed appropriate for the Attorney
General to seek SBF’s arrest and hold him in custody pursuant to our nation’s Extradition Act,” the office of The Bahamas Attorney General Ryan Pinder said.
