Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has been arrested in The Bahamas, the country’s attorney general has said.
He is scheduled to appear on Tuesday in a magistrates court in the Caribbean country’s capital, Nassau.
Police said Bankman-Fried was arrested for “financial offenses” against laws in the US and The Bahamas.
Last month FTX filed for bankruptcy in the US, leaving many users unable to withdraw their funds.
It is unclear how much people who have funds in the exchange will get back at the end of bankruptcy proceedings – though many experts have warned it may be a small fraction of what they deposited.
Bankman-Fried was once viewed as a young version of legendary US investor Warren Buffett, and as recently as late October had a net worth estimated at more than $15bn.
He had become well known in Washington DC as a political donor, mostly to Democrat politicians or groups, supposedly supporting pandemic prevention and improved crypto regulation.
Bankman-Fried will be held in custody “pursuant to our nation’s Extradition Act,” the Attorney General of the Bahamas said in a statement.
“Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the US Government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY [Southern District of New York]. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan said in a tweet.
Wall Street regulators also said that they would be taking action against Bankman-Fried.