Samuel Bankman-Fried of course is presumed innocent of the criminal charges against him (including the recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charge – see here for the prior post) until proven otherwise by the government or a plea by the defendant.
As detailed in the prior post, the FCPA charge against Bankman-Fried focuses on an alleged bribe to Chinese officials to unfreeze certain trading accounts containing over $1 billion in cryptocurrency – which had been frozen by Chinese authorities – so that Bankman-Fried and others could use the assets to fund additional trading activity.
In other words, the DOJ alleges, Bankman-Fried conspired to violate the FCPA to help facilitate the overall financial fraud schemes he allegedly engaged in.
As detailed below, this is not the first time the FCPA was lurking in the background of a high-profile financial fraud case.
