FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried agrees to extradition, expected to fly to U.S. Wednesday

Sam Bankman-Fried told a Bahamian court Wednesday that he has agreed to be extradited to the U.S. to face criminal charges related to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

The former FTX CEO appeared at a Magistrate’s Court and then was taken back to prison, where he is awaiting an airplane to take him to the United States, according to Bahamian news organization Our News. He is set to leave for the airport at 6 p.m. Eastern, Reuters reported.

Bahamian authorities arrested Bankman-Fried last week at the request of the U.S. government. U.S. prosecutors allege he played a central role in the rapid collapse of FTX and hid its problems from the public and investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman-Fried illegally used investors’ money to buy real estate on behalf of himself and his family.

The 30-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in jail.

In media interviews, Bankman-Fried — the son of two Stanford professors and a prolific political donor — has maintained that he erred in his running of FTX, but that he didn’t commit fraud.

Bankman-Fried was denied bail Friday after a Bahamian judge ruled that he posed a flight risk. The founder and former CEO of FTX, once worth tens of billions of dollars on paper, is being held in the Bahamas’ Fox Hill prison, which has been cited by human rights activists as having poor sanitation and being infested with rats and insects.

Once he’s back in the U.S., Bankman-Fried’s attorney will be able to request that he be released on bail.