By Allan Lengel
Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces a new federal indictment, this time for allegedly bribing Chinese government officials with at least $40 million in cryptocurrency, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The indictment unveiled in New York Tuesday alleges that Bankman-Fried paid off officials to to restore his access to frozen accounts containing more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency, in violation of U.S. antibribery law, the Journal writes. Law enforcement in China froze the accounts as part of an investigation.
Tuesday’s indictment was the third for Bankman-Fried since the collapse of the crypto exchange. The Wall Street Journal report the indictment contains 12 previous charges, plus one for violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
In the previous two indictments, Bankman-Fried was accused of stealing billions of dollars of FTX customer funds, misleading investors and lenders, bank fraud and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
