Last we heard from Sam Bankman-Fried, the architect of his crypto firm’s spectacular defrauding of investors and subsequent collapse, he had declined an invitation to testify in person before Congress, saying he was “quite overbooked.” Well, he now finds himself quite booked … in a Bahamian jail, with criminal charges pending.

News is just breaking that Bahamian authorities have arrested SBF “on receipt of formal notification from the United States that it has filed criminal charges against SBF and is likely to request his extradition.” Because of the extradition treaty between the two nations, the attorney general of the Bahamas took SBF into custody in preparation for shipping the crypto fraud back to the States.

Here’s more of the announcement out of the Bahamas:

Despite mounting evidence that SBF knowingly defrauded investors in his firm out of billions of dollars, the bushy-haired, disgraced wunderkind has been enjoying insane amounts of freedom in the weeks since FTX’s collapse, going on a media tour and spouting a lot tech bro-type gibberish and non-answers to gullible reporters. He seemed to be enjoying his notoriety, playing dumb before the cameras and seemingly confident that he would escape criminal charges. Investors were irate, rightly questioning when or if regulators would take action against him.

Congress also wanted some answers, with SBF’s legislative bestie, Maxine Waters, recently inviting him to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee. SBF’s testimony would likely have been a whole bunch of political theatre because Democrats, including several members of the afore-mentioned House Financial Services Committee, received gobs of cash from SBF. Waters even blew SBF a kiss at a hearing earlier this year — gotta keep that donation fire hose on full blast.

It is not yet known what charges SBF will face when he’s extradited back to the US, presumably in the next few days, but the details should come to light in the morning when the indictment against him is unsealed by the charging entity, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

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