A US agency said it won a court order for a $12.7 billion judgment against FTX and affiliate in the wake of the scandal involving former chief Sam Bankman-Fried, shown in December 2022
The US wants to recover over $17 million in cryptocurrencies linked to Sam Bankman-Fried's alleged bribery of Chinese officials to unfreeze Alameda funds held in Chinese exchanges in 2021. AFP

KEY POINTS

  • SBF allegedly directed Alameda to transfer some $40 million in USDT as part of the 'initial' bribe to Chinese officials
  • The bribe was allegedly sent in as part of SBF's efforts to get China to unfreeze some $1 billion in crypto on Chinese exchanges
  • FTX's collapse continues to affect the crypto space as the estate works to recover more assets for its customer repayment plan

The United States has moved to recover over $17 million worth of cryptocurrencies based on current prices that are linked to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried that he allegedly used to bribe Chinese officials in November 2021.

Prosecutors seek the seizure of various crypto assets from a Binance exchange account that Bankman-Fried allegedly directed FTX's sister company Alameda Research to send over to Chinese officials for the unfreezing of some $1 billion in crypto assets on Chinese exchanges.

US Wants Alleged Bribe Crypto Back

According to the legal complaint filed Tuesday, SBF, who is serving 25 years imprisonment for his role in his crypto company's fall, directed Alameda to transfer approximately $40 million in USDT stablecoins to a private wallet "as part of the initial payment to unfreeze" the Alameda crypto trading accounts on two Chinese exchanges.

"After confirmation that the Accounts were unfrozen, Bankman-Fried authorized additional payments to be made in the amount of tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency in order to complete the bribe," the filing stated.

The millions in additional crypto sent as a bribe from Alameda were allegedly "laundered" across multiple private digital wallets "to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds." A portion of the laundered bribe payments were then transferred to a Binance deposit wallet.

Among the assets that the U.S. wants to seize are some 7.6 million Ripple (XRP) tokens, more than 43,000 in Solana (SOL), and over 3.9 million Cardano (ADA) tokens.

FTX Collapse Aftermath Still Felt

News of the latest efforts to recover assets linked to the former crypto darling came as the remnants of FTX's spectacular collapse in late 2022 loom over the broader crypto space.

Just this week, the FTX estate sued crypto exchange giant Binance and its former CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao for $1.8 billion, alleging that Binance, Zhao and other executives dumped their 20 percent stake in FTX back to the company in a repurchase deal funded by customer deposits. The deal, which was funded through crypto tokens, was allegedly worth $1.76 billion.

The lawsuit further alleged that the customer funds were used to conceal FTX's financial troubles that only came to light over the course of a few days after a CoinDesk report unveiled discrepancies in Alameda's balance sheets.

A judge approved FTX's bankruptcy plan last month, which includes the target of fully repaying customers up to $16.5 billion in digital assets recovered since the crypto exchange crumbled.

The repayment process is subject to KYC (know-your-customer) verification and other distribution requirements, but it is unclear when victim-customers will be repaid considering how FTX also owes repayments to its creditors.

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