Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted founder of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has been moved from the federal jail in New York City to a transit facility in Oklahoma City, reported the Wall Street Journal on March 27.
A transit facility is used to house inmates who are being moved across the country.
Commonly known as SBF, the FTX founder has been housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. It was here that journalist Tucker Carlson interviewed SBF on March 6.
It is this unsanctioned jail video interview, conducted remotely, that seems to have triggered the decision of the authorities to move SBF out of the New York detention center.
SBF claimed innocence in the interview with Carlson and said he was wrongfully convicted. His parents are reportedly seeking a presidential pardon for their son through Donald Trump’s team.
Founded in 2019, FTX was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume at its peak in July 2021. However, as depositors got a whiff of potential fraud, they began withdrawing their funds from the exchange. Subsequently, FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.
SBF was convicted of seven counts of fraud, including fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, in November 2023. In March 2024, he was sentenced to nearly 25 years in prison and asked to pay over $11 billion in forfeiture.
Notably, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned President Trump’s SEC chair nominee Paul Atkins on March 23 over his role as the CEO of Patomak Global Partners that counted FTX among its clients before the exchange’s collapse.