© Reuters. The logo of FTX is seen at the entrance of the FTX Arena in Miami, Florida, U.S., November 12, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello
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(Reuters) – The collapse of FTX is the subject of scrutiny from investigators in the Bahamas, who are looking at whether any “criminal misconduct occurred,” the Royal Bahamas Police said on Sunday.
FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday, one of the highestprofile crypto blowups, after traders rushed to withdraw $6billion from the platform in just 72 hours and rival exchangeBinance abandoned a proposed rescue deal.
In a statement on Sunday, the Royal Bahamas Police said: “In light of the collapse of FTX globally and the provisional liquidation of FTX Digital Markets Ltd., a team of financial investigators from the Financial Crimes Investigation Branch are working closely with the Bahamas Securities Commission to investigate if any criminal misconduct occurred.”
FTX did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for a comment.
FTX’s newly appointed Chief Executive John J. Ray III said on Saturday that the company was working with law enforcement and regulators to mitigate the problem, and was making “every effort to secure all assets, wherever located.”
The exchange’s dramatic fall from grace has seen its30-year-old founder Sam Bankman-Fried, known for his shorts andT-shirt attire, morph from being the poster child of crypto’ssuccesses to the protagonist of the industry’s biggest crash.
Bankman-Fried, who lives in the Bahamas, has also been thesubject of speculation about his whereabouts and he deniedrumors on Twitter that he had flown to South America. When askedby Reuters on Saturday whether he had flown to Argentina, he responded in a text message: “Nope”. He told Reuters he was in the Bahamas.
