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FTX founder agrees to extradition to US

Sam Bankman-Fried has decided to agree to be extradited to the US to face fraud charges, hours after his lawyers told a Bahamas judge the FTX founder wanted to see the US indictment against him before consenting.

On Monday afternoon (local time), Jerone Roberts, Mr Bankman-Fried’s criminal defence lawyer in the Bahamas, told media outlets including the New York Times that his client had agreed to be voluntarily extradited and that he hoped Mr Bankman-Fried would be back in court later this week.

“We as counsel will prepare the necessary documents to trigger the court,” the Times quoted Mr Roberts as saying.

“Mr Bankman-Fried wishes to put the customers right, and that is what has driven his decision.”

Mr Roberts could not immediately be reached for comment.

Krystal Rolle, a lawyer who has represented Mr Bankman-Fried on other matters in the Bahamas, told Reuters the FTX founder had decided to consent to be extradited to the US.

Earlier in the day, Mr Roberts said during a court hearing in Nassau that his client had seen an affidavit laying out the charges against him over FTX’s dramatic collapse, but had not yet read the indictment filed last week in Manhattan federal court.

After the hearing, Mr Bankman-Fried was remanded back to the custody of the Bahamas’ Department of Corrections.

Mark Cohen, a US lawyer who represents Mr Bankman-Fried, did not respond to requests for comment. The US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and a spokesperson for MR Bankman-Fried also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The 30-year-old crypto mogul rode a boom in the value of bitcoin and other digital assets to become a billionaire several times over and an influential political donor in the US, until FTX collapsed in early November after a wave of withdrawals. The exchange declared bankruptcy on November 11.

Manhattan federal prosecutors have charged Mr Bankman-Fried with stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research.

Mr Bankman-Fried has acknowledged risk-management failures at FTX but said he did not believe he had criminal liability.

He was arrested on December 12 in the Bahamas – where he lives and where FTX is based – after federal prosecutors in New York accused him of misleading lenders and investors, conspiring to launder money and violating US campaign finance laws.

Mr Bankman-Fried initially had said he would fight extradition, but a source told Reuters on Saturday that the former billionaire would return to court to reverse his decision.

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