According to new court documents, disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) will be subject to approximately $700 million worth of asset forfeiture if convicted of fraud.
In a court document archived On Jan. 20, US Federal Attorney Damian Williams noted that the “government respectfully advises that the property subject to forfeiture” covers a long list of assets in fiat, stocks, and cryptocurrencies.
The documents state that most of the assets were seized by the government between January 4 and 19, while it also seeks to claim “all money and assets” belonging to three separate Binance accounts.
Looking at the list of seized assets, the largest allocations include 55,273,469 Robinhood (HOOD) shares worth approximately $525.5 million at the time of writing, $94.5 million at Silvergate Bank, $49.9 million at Farmington State Bank, and $20.7 million at ED&F Man Capital Markets, Inc.
The government has filed a forfeiture order in this case because it alleges that these assets have been obtained illegally through the use of customer deposits.
While members of SBF’s inner circle such as Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang have confessed and cooperated with prosecutors about their role in the FTX collapse, the man himself has pleaded not guilty to all eight criminal charges brought against him.
Related: FTX Bankruptcy Lawyer: Debtors Face ‘Twitter Assault’ Stemming From Sam Bankman-Fried
FTX lured African investors with inflation-hedge marketing
In other FTX-related news, on January 18 report of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) highlighted little-old marketing the exchange launched in Africa shortly before it went bankrupt in November.
The campaign in question touted USD-pegged stablecoins as safer investments than local currencies relative to inflation, while promoting the potential to earn 8% per year through staking rewards programs.
While those inflationary sentiments may be true across the board given that African currencies like the Nigerian naira and Ghana cedi have slumped against the USD, any African FTX clients persuaded by the marketing, of course, lost funds when the company went bankrupt
Related: FTX reset could fail due to long-broken user trust, observers say
Former FTX education leader for Africa, Pius Okedinachi, told the WSJ that around that time, the exchange oversaw around $500 million in monthly trading volume in Africa, with most of the volume coming from Nigeria.
Notably, just eight days before FTX filed for bankruptcy, SBF also promoted FTX’s services in West Africa, announcing in a November 3 tweet that the exchange had begun accepting deposits in West African CFA francs.
