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Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest in the Bahamas on Monday marks the beginning of a new chapter in the FTX saga, one that will pit the former crypto billionaire against the Southern District of New York.

The indictment is expected to remain sealed until Tuesday morning. U.S. prosecutors haven’t commented, and neither the Attorney General of the Bahamas nor the Royal Bahamas Police Force would confirm the nature of the charges against Bankman-Fried.

The New York Times reported that the charges against Bankman-Fried included conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, as well as standalone charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

The SEC has initiated a separate set of charges against Bankman-Fried, relating to “violations of our securities laws, which will be filed publicly tomorrow in the Southern District of New York,” enforcement director Gurbir Grewal said in a statement on Monday.

A spokesperson for the SEC declined further comment.

The charges could land Bankman-Fried in prison for decades, legal experts told CNBC. But before he ever serves time, U.S. prosecutors have to secure an extradition from the Bahamas back to New York.

Sam Bankman-Fried faces an onslaught of regulatory probes

An effort to extradite

“It is inconceivable to me that the Justice Department would have charged this case unless they were confident that they could extradite him,” Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, told CNBC.

Mariotti anticipates an extradition will take weeks to complete.

“The statement by the Bahamian government suggests that they’re going to cooperate,” Mariotti said.

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The U.S. and the Bahamas have had an extradition treaty in place since 1931, with the most recent iteration codified in 1990. Because Bankman-Fried hasn’t been convicted in the Bahamas yet, U.S. prosecutors had to secure an arrest warrant and provide sufficient evidence to the Bahamians that he had committed a crime.

Extradition is the first step in a process that could take years to finish. Given the magnitude of Bankman-Fried’s alleged crimes, prosecutors and regulators will be pursuing concurrent cases around the world.

A trial in the U.S. “may not occur for years,” Mariotti said.

“The more that they charge, the bigger that the case is, the more time they’re going to need to get in motion,” he said. “I would say late 2023 is the earliest a trial would occur.”

Prosecutors could argue that FTX breached its fiduciary duty by allegedly using customer funds to artificially stabilize the price of the company’s self-issued FTT coin, Mariotti said.

Intent is also a factor in fraud cases, and Bankman-Fried insists he didn’t know about potentially fraudulent activity. He told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times DealBook conference that he “didn’t knowingly commingle funds.”

“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud,” Bankman-Fried said.

In prepared testimony for the House Financial Services committee, new FTX CEO John Ray confirmed that commingling of funds had occurred between FTX and Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund.

The risk of an FTX crypto contagion

Other legal trouble

Beyond the criminal charges set to be unveiled Tuesday morning, Bankman-Fried is also facing civil action, which could be brought by the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and state banking and securities regulators, said Richard Levin, who chairs the fintech and regulation practice at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough.

The CFTC and lawmakers have begun their probes into FTX and Bankman-Fried, who told Sorkin he was down to his last $100,000.

Shortly after Bankman-Fried’s arrest, the SEC appeared to confirm that the agency would pursue a separate set of charges from the criminal indictment.

Lawmakers also expressed their satisfaction at Bankman-Fried’s arrest. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, applauded both the Justice Department and Bahamian law enforcement “for holding Sam Bankman-Fried accountable.”

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, echoed that sentiment, but expressed disappointment that Bankman-Fried was arrested before his House testimony, which was scheduled for Tuesday.

“I am surprised to hear that Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas at the direction of the United States Attorney,” Waters said in a statement.

“[The] American public deserves to hear directly from Mr. Bankman-Fried about the actions that’ve harmed over one million people,” Waters continued.

Bankman-Fried had also been invited to appear before the Senate prior to his arrest. That hearing will occur on Wednesday.

It’s unclear whether the SEC or the CFTC will take the lead in securing civil damages.

“The question of who would be taking the lead there, whether it be the SEC or CFTC, depends on whether or not there were securities involved,” Mariotti told CNBC.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who met with Bankman-Fried and FTX executives earlier this year, has said publicly that “many crypto tokens are securities,” which would make his agency the primary regulator.

But many exchanges, including FTX, have crypto derivatives platforms that sell financial products like futures and options, which fall under the CFTC’s jurisdiction.

“For selling unregistered securities without a registration or an exemption, you could be looking at the Securities Exchange Commission suing for disgorgement — monetary penalties,” said Levin, who’s represented clients before both agencies.

Investors who have lost their savings aren’t waiting. Class-action suits have already been filed against FTX endorsers, like comedian Larry David and football superstar Tom Brady. One suit excoriated the celebrities for allegedly failing to do their “due diligence prior to marketing [FTX] to the public.”

FTX’s industry peers are also filing suit against Bankman-Fried. Failed lender BlockFi sued Bankman-Fried in November, seeking unnamed collateral that the FTX founder provided for the crypto lending firm.

FTX and Bankman-Fried had previously rescued BlockFi from insolvency in June, but when FTX failed, BlockFi was left with a similar liquidity problem and filed for bankruptcy protection in New Jersey.

Bankman-Fried has also been sued in Florida and California federal courts. He faces class-action suits in both states over “one of the great frauds in history,” a California court filing said.

The largest securities class-action settlement was for $7.2 billion in the Enron accounting fraud case, according to Stanford research. The possibility of a multibillion-dollar settlement would come on top of civil and criminal fines that Bankman-Fried faces.

FTX testimony this week is going to be very telling, says CEO of Bitfury Group, it sounds like a scheme

A life behind bars

If the DOJ were able to secure a conviction, a judge would look to several factors to determine how long to sentence him.

Based on the size of the losses, if Bankman-Fried is convicted on any of the fraud charges, he could be behind bars for years — potentially for the rest of his life, said Braden Perry, a partner at Kennyhertz Perry who advises clients on anti-money laundering, compliance and enforcement issues.

But the length of any potential sentence is hard to predict, said Perry, who was previously a senior trial lawyer for the CFTC, FTX’s only official U.S. regulator.

Federal sentencing guidelines follow a numeric system to determine the maximum and minimum allowable sentence, but the system can be esoteric. The scale, or “offense level,” starts at one, and maxes out at 43.

A wire fraud conviction rates as a seven on the scale, with a minimum sentence ranging from zero to six months.

But mitigating factors and enhancements can alter that rating, Perry told CNBC.

“The dollar value of loss plays a significant role. Under the guidelines, any loss above $550 million adds 30 points to the base level offense,” Perry said. FTX customers have lost billions of dollars.

“Having 25 or more victims adds 6 points, [and] use of certain regulated markets adds 4,” Perry said.

That means Bankman-Fried could be facing life in federal prison, without the possibility of supervised release, if he’s convicted on just one of the offenses that prosecutors will reportedly pursue.

If convicted, his sentence could be reduced by mitigating factors.

“In practice, many white-collar defendants are sentenced to lesser sentences than what the guidelines dictate,” Perry said. Even in large fraud cases, that 30-point enhancement previously mentioned can be considered punitive.

By way of comparison, Stefan Qin, the Australian founder of a $90 million cryptocurrency hedge fund, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud.

Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson, a Swedish national accused by the United States of defrauding over 3,500 victims of more than $16 million, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.

France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.

At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.

And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:

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While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.

FRANCO-GERMAN COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC EXPERTS (FGCEE)

That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.

“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”

The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.

You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.

Electrek’s Take

Hydrogen-sceptical truck maker MAN to produce limited series of 200 vehicles with H2 combustion engines
MAN hydrogen semi; via MAN Trucks.

MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.

He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”

With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.

SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!

Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction


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