US authorities are asking crypto investors and trading firms who worked closely with FTX to hand over information on the company and its key figures including Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York recently sent out a series of requests, asking recipients to hand over information on a list of FTX employees and associates, the report said, citing people familiar with the case.
Attorneys from the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division also sent similar requests for information to companies that invested in or traded on FTX, the report added.
The regulator is trying to get a better sense of what FTX representatives told investors and whether any misrepresentations were made that would violate securities laws, according to the report.
The US Department of Justice’s bankruptcy watchdog earlier on Thursday called for an independent investigation into the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
Sam Bankman-Fried, 30, founded FTX in 2019 and rode cryptocurrency boom to a net worth that Forbes pegged a year ago at $26.5 billion (roughly Rs. 2,16,560 crore). Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX’s chief executive officer the same day as the firm’s bankruptcy filing.
The liquidity crunch came after Bankman-Fried secretly moved $10 billion (roughly Rs. 81,700 crore) of FTX customer funds to his proprietary trading firm, Alameda Research, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
FTX’s downfall will be examined in several more congressional hearings this month, with the House Financial Services Committee set to hold the first in a series of meetings on December 13.
Last month, newly-appointed FTX CEO John Ray had said in a US court filing that there was flawed regulatory oversight and a lack of corporate control of the bankrupt crypto exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.
US Attorney’s Office for SDNY, SEC, FTX and Caroline Ellison did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Bankman-Fried could not be immediately reached.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
