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Sam Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty to latest fraud, bribery charges

Prosecutors claim the former FTX CEO conspired to transfer $40 million to foreign officials.

Amanda Perobelli / reuters

FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) pleaded not guilty to five additional criminal charges this morning, according to CNBC. Prosecutors accuse the disgraced crypto exec of fraud and bribery for conspiring to send at least $40 million to Chinese government officials so they would unfreeze more than $1 billion in cryptocurrency, which he allegedly used to fund loss-generating trades.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) unsealed the third round of criminal charges against SBF in a superseding indictment; SBF has now pleaded not guilty to all 13 charges. Additionally, he faces civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). His attorney, Mark Cohen, claimed he would file a motion that SBF can’t be tried on charges brought after his extradition from the Bahamas in December.