Sam Bankman-Fried is set to leave the Bahamas for New York after waiving his right to challenge an extradition to the US, where he faces multiple fraud charges over the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
The office of the Bahamian attorney-general confirmed Bankman-Fried was at a Nassau airport waiting to depart the Caribbean island on Wednesday evening, after authorities received “written consent” from the FTX founder to “be extradited without formal extradition proceedings”.
A person close to Bankman-Fried said they expected him to appear in a Manhattan court on Thursday morning.
Bankman-Fried had appeared earlier at a Nassau courthouse under heavy police guard. The hearing concluded about 40 minutes after his defence lawyer told the court he is “anxious to leave” the Caribbean nation, Reuters reported.
The US Department of Justice last week filed charges against Bankman-Fried and accused him of orchestrating “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history” by misappropriating customer assets from FTX to his private trading firm Alameda Research. He was arrested last week in the Bahamas, where he lives.
US embassy officials entered the courthouse in Nassau shortly before Bankman-Fried, according to Reuters. Personnel from the FBI and US Marshals Service had also arrived on the island, the news agency reported.
Under US law, Bankman-Fried must be brought before a magistrate in Manhattan within two days of landing in New York, for an initial hearing in which the charges against him will be read out.
A decision will also be made on whether to grant the FTX founder bail until a trial begins and, if so, on what conditions. The former billionaire’s request last week to be released on bail in the Bahamas had been denied by a local judge.
Should he arrive in New York after court hours, Bankman-Fried would probably be held in custody overnight within the court complex. Were he to be denied bail, Bankman-Fried would then be transferred to a pre-trial facility, such as the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was held while on trial.
Since his arrest in the Bahamas last week, Bankman-Fried had been held at a Nassau prison known for its harsh conditions.
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