According to court filings on Friday, the US government is looking to take possession of assets worth nearly $700 million that were confiscated earlier this month from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
The assets include over 55 million shares of Robinhood valued at approximately $525 million, which were purchased with borrowed money from Alameda and were at the center of a dispute between Bankman-Fried, FTX Group, and BlockFi. Additionally, the government aims to acquire $171 million in cash from a collection of bank accounts connected to Bankman-Fried’s various companies.
The US government seized those assets and more in early January and are now seeking their forfeiture, per a bill of particulars filed late Friday in Bankman-Fried’s criminal case.
“We believe that these assets are not property in the bankruptcy estate” or are subject to exemptions, meaning they don’t have to be frozen like most FTX assets are, pending wind-up, a government lawyer previously told the judge in this case.
Assets Seized So Far By The US Government
The CNBC report highlighted three Silvergate Bank accounts belonging to FTX Digital Markets, which held over $6 million. These assets were taken into custody by the government around January 11. Additionally, Moonstone Bank, a rural Washington state bank with ties to FTX management, had nearly $50 million in assets that have also been seized by the US government.
The Feds have not revealed the values of the assets they have seized from one Binance account and two Binance.US account numbers. Additionally, Emergent Fidelity Technologies had assets worth over $20 million that were also taken into custody.
FTX’s chief restructuring officer, John J. Ray III, along with the new management team, has been identifying billions of dollars of assets linked to the Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire as part of bankruptcy proceedings. The former CEO pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges, including wire fraud and violations of campaign finance laws, after his extradition to the United States from the Bahamas.
