After being detained by the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the SBF abandoned its plans to resist extradition.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is flying back to the United States this very Wednesday.
This was revealed by Doan Cleare, the acting corrections commissioner for the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services, according to a new report from NBC News.
SBF, who is currently in Bahamas’ Fox Hill jail, declined to waive his right to challenge extradition to the United States and signed the necessary documents for the process.
Cleare did not disclose the reason for his decision but noted that fighting the extradition could take years.
Speaking to the Bahamian newspaper, he stated that SBF would rather spend that time in the United States than in the Bahamas, despite the fact that the island country has hosted the FTX since 2021.
Jerone Roberts – the lawyer representing SBF – confirmed that the former executive “voluntarily agreed to be voluntarily extradited to the United States of America.”
Some reports claimed that the FTX founder will be escorted by FBI agents on a non-commercial plane.
Bankman-Fried was arrested by Bahamian police on December 12 and held at the notorious Fox Hill Prison.
The 30-year-old man is accused of misappropriating billions of dollars deposited with cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which last month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The day after his arrest, a Bahamian judge denied Bankman-Fried’s bail request, calling the former billionaire a flight risk.
The executive faces a series of charges filed by three different government agencies: the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
