The United States Attorney’s Office revealed an additional charge for Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon following his extradition from Montenegro: money laundering conspiracy.

In a new indictment filed on January 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams alleged that Kwon conspired with others to commit money laundering.

According to the U.S. Attorney, the Terraform co-founder facilitated transactions of over $10,000 on the platform, knowing that the property involved in certain financial transactions represented the proceeds of unlawful activity.

The money laundering charge was not initially part of the eight-count indictment filed against Kwon in March 2023. Prosecutors filed the indictment under seal in May 2024, and on January 2, a judge ordered the unsealing of the indictment during Kwon’s court appearance.

Kwon, who is alleged to have been involved in the 2022 collapse of the Terra ecosystem, was arrested and detained in Montenegro in 2023 for using falsified travel documents. Authorities from the U.S. and South Korea filed competing petitions to extradite the Terraform co-founder, but Montenegrin authorities did not make a decision on his legal status until December 2024, when Kwon was handed over to U.S. officials.

Will It Be A Court Trial or A Settlement Agreement?

The Terraform co-founder appeared in court on January 2, pleaded not guilty to all charges, and agreed to remain in detention. It remains unclear whether U.S. authorities will consider a plea deal or move forward with the charges.

Kwon’s case is similar to that of former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, another crypto executive who was subject to the jurisdiction of another country (the Bahamas) before being extradited to the U.S.

In SBF’s case, his lawyers argued that a campaign finance charge added to a superseding indictment should be dropped, as it was not part of the extradition request.

Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven felony counts and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but he has filed an appeal.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to one charge and served four months in prison in 2024.

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FTX, the former crypto exchange, is suing Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao to recover approximately $1.8 billion that it claims was fraudulently transferred by Sam Bankman-Fried.

The lawsuit alleges that Binance, Zhao, and other Binance executives received these funds as part of a share buyback agreement made in July 2021 with FTX founder Bankman-Fried.

In this agreement, Bankman-Fried used FTX’s native token FTT, Binance’s BNB coin, and the Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin to make a $1.76 billion payment to buy back shares in FTX’s international and U.S. operations.

The FTX bankruptcy estate claims that FTX and its sister trading platform Alameda Research were already insolvent in early 2021. This claim forms the basis of the lawsuit. If the allegations are proven true, the buyback deal could be considered fraudulent, and the funds transferred to Binance should be returned to FTX’s creditors.

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The photo, which is claimed to have been taken on December 17, depicts Bankman-Fried with five other inmates. Fong shared this photo during an interview with former MDC prisoner “G Lock”. While G Lock provided some insights into Bankman-Fried’s prison life, he described him as “strangely devil-like” but also noted that he was “a good man”. It was also shared that Bankman-Fried did not shave or take showers in prison conditions.

First photo of Sam Bankman-Fried in jail at MDC Brooklyn. (December 17, 2023) pic.twitter.com/QlENjjmeQG

— Tiffany Fong (@TiffanyFong_) February 20, 2024

Some members of the crypto industry commented on SBF’s situation in the photo. Some noted that prison life wasn’t treating him well, while others joked that he’d joined gangs in prison. On the other hand, Bankman-Fried’s prison attitude was claimed to be “more gangster” than American rapper Tekashi Six Nine as Bankman-Fried hadn’t “snitched on anyone” in prison.

Finally, according to Fong, while Bankman-Fried’s friends in prison poked fun at his relationship with Caroline Ellison, it was reported they watched his interview that was published with the biography of Michael Lewis’s Big Short book.

The post New Images of SBF from Prison! appeared first on Coin Engineer.

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Gary Wang made a shocking statement on October 6th, alleging that the $100 million insurance fund claimed was a hoax. Furthermore, this fund did not contain the  FTT tokens it claimed to possess. The figure presented to the public, instead of a correct valuation, was based on the FTX Token’s daily trading volume and was multiplied by an arbitrary factor of about 7,500.

Wang resisted the prosecution’s claims about the fund’s value, stating in a concise manner: “No.”

Wang continued as such: “Firstly, there is no FTT in the insurance fund. It’s just a figure in US dollars. Secondly, the figure presented here does not match the figure in the database.”

FTX has presented the ”Backstop Fund”

On October 6, an exhibit demonstrating the code alleged to determine the size of the “Backstop Fund” or public insurance fund was ready to present at the case hearing. FTX had frequently promoted the value of the insurance fund on the website, providing users with protection against market fluctuations. Wang’s statement revealed that the fund’s actual resources were insufficient to cover potential losses.

In 2021, a trader exploited a security loophole in FTX’s margin system to hold a significant position in MobileCoin. Also, As explained by Wang, this exploitation resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for FTX.

Wang claimed Bankman-Fried instructed Alameda to shift insurance fund burden to hide loss, as investors believed Alameda’s private balance sheets made it an appropriate choice.

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