(Reuters) – Federal prosecutors are investigating an alleged cybercrime that drained more than $370 million from crypto exchange FTX hours after it filed for bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday citing a person familiar with the case.
The criminal probe into the stolen assets, launched by the Department of Justice is separate from fraud case against FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, the report added.
A spokesperson for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office said he could not confirm or comment on the issue, while DoJ and FTX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
FTX filed for U.S. bankruptcy last month and Bankman-Fried stepped down as chief executive, after traders pulled billions from the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance abandoned a rescue deal.
The U.S. Department of Justice accused Bankman-Fried of causing billions of dollars of losses related to FTX, which a U.S. prosecutor called a “fraud of epic proportions.”
Bankman-Fried founded FTX in 2019 and rode a boom in the values of bitcoin and other digital assets to become a billionaire several times over as well as an influential donor to U.S. political campaigns.
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The FTX collapse has fanned fears about the future of the crypto industry after the beleaguered exchange outlined a “severe liquidity crisis”.
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)