The Fed seized nearly $700 million from FTX founder Bankman-Fried

Jan. 20 (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors seized nearly $700 million in assets from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in January, largely in Robinhood stock, according to a lawsuit filed Friday.

Bankman-Fried, who has been accused of stealing billions of dollars from FTX clients to pay off debts incurred by the cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund, has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges. He is scheduled to face trial in October.

The Justice Department disclosed the forfeiture of Robinhood shares earlier this month, but provided a more complete list of the assets forfeited on Friday, including cash held in various banks and assets held on cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

Ownership of the seized Robinhood shares, valued at approximately $525 million, has been the subject of disputes between Bankman-Fried, FTX, and bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi.

The most recent asset seizure reported by the DOJ occurred Thursday, when prosecutors confiscated $94.5 million in cash from an account at Silvergate Bank that was linked to FTX Digital Markets, a subsidiary of FTX in the Bahamas. The Department of Justice seized more than $7 million from other Silvergate accounts linked to Bankman-Fried and FTX.

The DOJ previously seized nearly $50 million from an FTX Digital Markets account at Moonstone Bank, a small Washington state bank.

The DOJ also said that assets in three Binance accounts linked to Bankman-Fried were subject to criminal forfeiture, but did not provide an estimate of the value in those accounts.

Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Noelene Walder and Daniel Wallis

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