Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested by authorities in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government, just a day before the disgraced former FTX CEO was due to testify before Congress.

Bankman-Fried was arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police Force following a formal notification from the United States government that it has filed criminal charges against him, according to a Dec. 12 statement from the Bahamas Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Ryan Pinder.

Citing a person with knowledge of the matter, The New York Times reported on Dec. 12 that the charges against Bankman-Fried include wire and securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud and money laundering,

The U.S. will likely request the extradition of Bankman-Fried, with Pinder stating that the Bahamas will “promptly” process any extradition request.

Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said in a statement that both countries have “a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was “closely” examining whether FTX improperly transferred hundreds of millions around the same time as the company declared bankruptcy on Nov. 11.

In just a few short years, the crypto exchange went from nothing to a seemingly all conquering presence – from magazine covers to ads at major sporting events. It was considered valuable because it charged customers fees to buy and and trade crypto, but also because Bankman-Fried was considered the next messianic tech figure who was going to use FTX to launch a “super app” for finance that would raise cryptocurrency’s legitimacy.

Bahamian authorities were similarly undertaking their own “active and ongoing” investigation into FTX as announced on Nov. 27 by Pinder that involved the country’s Securities Commission, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the police’s financial crimes unit.

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Bankman-Fried’s arrest comes a day before he was expected to appear remotely to testify before the House Committee on Financial Services in a hearing investigating the collapse of the exchange.

Authorities in the Bahamas have released a statement which reads: ‘The Bahamas and the United States have a shared interest in holding accountable all individuals associated with FTX who may have betrayed the public trust and broken the law. While the United States is pursuing criminal charges against SBF individually, The Bahamas will continue its own regulatory and criminal investigations into the collapse of FTX, with the continued cooperation of its law enforcement and regulatory partners in the United States and elsewhere.’

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