https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64740128 23rd February 2023
The former boss of collapsed crypto exchange FTX has been hit with four new criminal charges accusing him of conspiring to make illegal political donations and to commit bank fraud.
Mr Bankman-Fried now faces a total of 12 criminal charges.
Regarding the latest charges, prosecutors accused Mr Bankman-Fried of conspiring with two other former FTX executives to donate tens of millions of dollars to influence US politicians to pass laws favourable to the company.
The donations were allegedly made through "straw" donors or with corporate funds, allowing Mr Bankman-Fried to evade contribution limits, prosecutors said.
They claimed Mr Bankman-Fried told one executive to donate to left-leaning candidates and the other to Republicans, with many donations funded by his Alameda Research hedge fund and including FTX customer funds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65104103 28th March 2023
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of failed crypto firm FTX, has been accused of bribing at least one Chinese official.
In new charges unveiled in the US, officials accuse the entrepreneur of authorising a bribe of "at least $40m" (£32.5m) to try to gain access to trading accounts frozen by Chinese authorities.
The updated indictment says Mr Bankman-Fried authorised the bribe after Chinese authorities froze accounts holding roughly $1bn (£811m) worth of cryptocurrency that belonged to his trading firm, Alameda Research.
The accounts were released after the transfer, which went to a private cryptocurrency wallet, according to the filing.
The alleged bribe followed months of other efforts to access the funds, which Mr Bankman-Fried believed were frozen as part of an investigation into another trading firm, it said.
The incident happened before FTX's dramatic collapse last year, when reports about the company's finances led to a rush of withdrawals, pushing the firm into bankruptcy.