Per NBC News

Sam Bankman-Fried faces multiple charges related to the collapse of the now-bankrupt FTX. The latest charge is bribery, with the accusations saying he paid $40 million to at least one Chinese gov't official.

Indictment documents accused SBF of successfully bribing a Chinese government official in 2021. This was due to him trying to regain access to frozen Alameda trading accounts.

"(SBF) conspired to bribe one or more Chinese government officials in order to regain access to Alameda trading ‘accounts that had been frozen by Chinese law enforcement authorities."

As of the moment, SBF is still awaiting trial, set to take place on October 2, as per Coin Telegraph. Per the DOJ, the prosecutors already hold evidence from Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, FTX co-founder.

The indictment reveals that SBF reportedly directed an employee to make the bribery payment to at least one government official. This was after the Chinese authorities had reportedly frozen the accounts of Alameda, which were reportedly worth over $1 billion.

“After confirmation that the accounts were unfrozen, Bankman-Fried authorized the transfer of additional tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to complete the bribe,”

Previously, it was reported that Sam Bankman-Fried could be facing up to 115 years in prison if he was convicted of the previous eight counts against him. The counts against him included fraud, conspiracy, and security fraud, among others.

SBF was reportedly barred from contacting ex-employees by using Signal. This encrypted messaging tool gained popularity as an alternative to WhatsApp when the latter announced it was changing its service terms.

It was noted that on Jan 1, the disgraced founder of the now-bankrupt FTX reportedly used the app to try to contact the general counsel of the FTX US affiliate. The message included an invitation to discuss things on the phone.

See flow at unusualwhales.com/flow.

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Resources:

NBC News

Coin Telegraph

Indictment Documents