Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested: Live Updates

Sam Bankman- Fried, the founder of the collapsed FTX crypto exchange, was arrested on Monday night in the Bahamas and charged with civil securities fraud.

He was charged by the SEC with misleading big investors about the financial health of FTX and its sister platform, Alameda Research.

According to the S.E.C., Mr. Bankman-Fried misled customers by telling them it was safe to trade on FTX. According to the S.E.C., money from customers was used to finance investments in outside ventures, buy real estate and make political donations.

The chair of the S.E.C. said that Sam Bankman- Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in the world.

The S.E.C. said that Mr. Bankman-Fried diverted billions of dollars of the trading platform's customer funds for his own benefit.

A criminal indictment against Mr. Bankman-Fried is expected to be unsealed on Tuesday.

The collapse of the FTX empire has caused a lot of people to get to grips with the security and safety of the platforms that are traded on. FTX spent a lot of money on advertising and marketing.

According to the S.E.C., Bankman-Fried diverted customer funds to his private fund and used them for ventures, real estate purchases, and political donations.

Regulators said there was no difference between customer funds and Alameda's trading account. According to the S.E.C., Mr. Bankman- Fried lied to investors about FTX's treatment of Alameda.

A representative for Mr. Bankman- Fried wouldn't comment.

For the past few weeks, Mr. Bankman- Fried has given several media interviews, claiming he never intended to defraud anyone and was not aware of how much customer money had been diverted to shore up Alameda.

According to a law and business professor at the University of Michigan, the S.E.C. gets 90 percent of what it needs from the S.B.F. There was no need for a secret smoking gun.

Federal authorities will probably try to extradite Mr. Bankman-Fried from the Bahamas, but he may choose to fight it.