Turkey Regulators Orders Seizure of Bankman-Fried’s Assets

Regulators in Turkey have put former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried under investigation and have ordered that his assets be seized.

According to an announcement made by Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board, locally referred to as MASAK, the investigation began on the 14th of November.  A couple of discrepancies were discovered and the actions taken against SBF following the bankruptcy filing were also outlined.

Specifically, an inquiry into claims against SBF has been opened. Before the commencement of the investigation, the watchdog received approval from the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The approval gave MASAK the right to begin “an investigation for various antecedent crimes and laundering the property values ​​arising from the crime” and to “confiscate the suspicious assets” in accordance with local law.

Based on the investigation so far, the watchdog realized that FTX did not store customers’ deposits safely, instead, the exchange resorted to embezzling customers’ funds through shady transactions. Similarly, the now-bankrupt FTX instigated unsuspecting customers to buy and sell listed cryptocurrencies that had no backing from any crypto exchange, thereby manipulating the supply and demand in the market. 

FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried Goes Under Investigation 

Not only were Bankman-Fried’s assets seized, but those of his affiliates were also equally impounded.

Based on the published notice, the Turkish regulator said “As a result of our aforementioned application, a judicial investigation was opened against the suspects and a confiscation measure was applied to the assets of the suspects.”

Since FTX Derivative Exchange came under liquidity crises and filed for a bankruptcy proceeding in the United States, several other regulators including the Securities Commission of Bahamas where the exchange is headquartered have opened a probe into FTX, its other 130 affiliates, and Sam Bankman-Fried. A few weeks before the implosion, Texas regulators had begun a probe on SBF and the U.S. arm of the exchange.

At that time, FTX U.S. was indicted for allegedly offering unregistered securities in the form of yield-bearing accounts to U.S. residents.

The regulator requested that such securities must be registered seeing that they were a source of financial returns. There was certainly no assurance at that time which clarified that SBF and his exchange had violated any state rule.