As disgraced FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried prepares to fight being sent to the US to face criminal charges, the Bahamas’ top diplomat is warning that extradition battles can be long and tedious.
(Bloomberg) — As disgraced FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried prepares to fight being sent to the US to face criminal charges, the Bahamas’ top diplomat is warning that extradition battles can be long and tedious.
Fred Mitchell, the island nation’s minister of foreign affairs, said an attempt to block removal from the Bahamas could drag on for months or even years.
He declined to speak specifically about Bankman-Fried, who was arrested on Monday at the request of American authorities.
“A person has a right to fight extradition,” Mitchell said in an interview on Friday.
“In the United States, extraditions also take a long time. Courts grind slowly sometimes.”
As Bankman-Fried appeared in court for the first time, his lawyers indicated that he plans to resist extradition.
US prosecutors in Manhattan on Tuesday unsealed an eight-count indictment that included charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud for allegedly misappropriating billions of dollars in funds from FTX customers.
Before his arrest, in numerous interviews following FTX’s implosion last month, the 30-year-old denied knowingly committing fraud or breaking the law.
Since he was denied bail at the court appearance on Tuesday, Bankman-Fried has been in a notorious correctional facility on the outskirts of Nassau known as Fox Hill.
Local media reported that he may appeal the bail ruling.
Authorities in both countries are probing Bankman-Fried’s involvement in FTX’s collapse last month. The firm was headquartered in the Bahamas.
Bahamian authorities are digging into what role its former top executives may have played in client withdrawals after the government froze FTX’s assets.
In interviews and speeches, officials have denied suggestions that the government was too close to Bankman-Fried and other top FTX officials to properly regulate them.
On Friday, Mitchell, the foreign minister, denied that the Bahamas had been lax in its oversight.
“Bad actors, or alleged bad actors, can turn up in any country,” he said Friday, citing US scandals like those involving Enron Corp.
and Bernie Madoff. “It’s not the jurisdiction that’s the issue, it’s the actors who are the issue.”
Mitchell added that US and Bahamian law enforcement officials are fully cooperating on the FTX case.
“There is no impact in terms of the foreign relations between our country and the United States on this,” he said.
“The jurisdictions continue to cooperate on all kinds of levels.”
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