Robinhood Shares Worth Nearly $500M Seized in FTX Case
The stock was owned – via a holding company – by Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX co-founder Gary Wang.
Jan 9, 2023 at 1:14 p.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/HVCPEJLIZ5DIHN6KDTFA4EZ5FE.jpg)
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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October 24, 2023 • Convene • Washington D.C.Register NowThe U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has seized more than 55 million shares of Robinhood (HOOD) stock owned – via a holding company – by Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, according to a court document. The shares were worth just over $456 million based on HOOD's closing price of $8.25 on Friday.
The stock had been held at an account at U.K.-based brokerage ED&F Man.
The "seized Assets constitute property involved in violations" of crimes such as money laundering and wire fraud reads the court document. Sam Bankman-Fried was formally charged with those and other crimes on Dec. 13.
The Robinhood shares were in principle owned by FTX co-founders Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang through their Emergent Fidelity Technologies holding company. FTX, now run by John Ray III, had asked a judge late last month to freeze the stock. Bankman-Fried naturally opposed the move, saying, in part, he needed the shares to help pay his legal fees.
The U.S. government said it was in the process of seizing a number of assets potentially linked to FTX on Wednesday.
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Camomile Shumba is a CoinDesk regulatory reporter based in the UK. She previously worked as an intern for Business Insider and Bloomberg News. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.
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