Former FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appear in court in the Bahamas on Monday to reverse his decision to contest extradition to the United States, where he faces fraud charges, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

The 30-year-old cryptocurrency mogul was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday and accused of engaging in a scheme to defraud FTX customers.

His decision to consent to extradition would pave the way for him to appear in U.S. court to face charges of using billions of dollars in stolen customer deposits to pay for expenses and debts and to make investments on behalf of his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.

Upon arrival in the United States, Bankman-Fried would likely be held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, though some federal defendants are being held at jails just outside New York City due to overcrowding at the facility, said defense lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma.

At his initial court hearing in Manhattan, Bankman-Fried would be asked to enter a plea and a judge would make a determination on bail, Margulis-Ohnuma said. The attorney added that such a hearing must take place within 48 hours of Bankman-Fried’s arrival in the United States, though it would likely be sooner.

Prosecutors will likely argue that Bankman-Fried is a flight risk and should remain in custody because of the large sums of money involved in the case and the unclear location of those funds.

“The missing money gives prosecutors strong arguments that he is a flight risk,” said former federal prosecutor and white-collar defense attorney Michael Weinstein. “I expect that if a judge grants pretrial release, they would impose very restrictive and onerous conditions.”

Any trial is likely more than a year away, legal experts told Reuters.

Neither a spokesman nor a U.S.-based lawyer for Bankman-Fried immediately responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan declined to comment.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Bankman-Fried to change his mind and decide not to contest extradition.

The U.S. State Department in a 2021 report said conditions at Fox Hill were “harsh,” citing overcrowding, rodent infestation and prisoners relying on buckets as toilets. Authorities there say conditions have since improved.

Bankman-Fried was arrested last Monday in the Bahamas, where he lives and where FTX is based. He was remanded on Tuesday to the Caribbean country’s Fox Hill prison after Chief Magistrate JoyAnn Ferguson-Pratt rejected his request to remain at home while awaiting a hearing on his extradition to the United States.

Bankman-Fried had made a new bail application before the Bahamas Supreme Court on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters at the time.

Bankman-Fried amassed a fortune valued at over $20 billion as he rode a cryptocurrency boom to build FTX into one of the world’s largest exchanges before it abruptly collapsed this year.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, described the collapse of FTX as one of the “biggest financial frauds in American history.” Bankman-Fried has acknowledged risk management failures at FTX but has said he did not believe he had any criminal liability.

Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years in prison if ultimately convicted of all eight counts he faces in the United States, though any sentence would ultimately be determined by a judge based on a range of factors.

Related Galleries:

Source link

The post Power supply already restored to 6M Ukrainians appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who has said she is leading a transitional government, urged the country’s Congress to pass a proposal to bring forward general elections in a news conference from the presidential palace on Saturday.

Boluarte, formerly Peru’s vice president, assumed the presidency earlier this month after leftist then-President Pedro Castillo tried to illegally dissolve Congress and was arrested.

Since then, protests have broken out across the country, and at least 17 people have been killed. Another five have died of indirect consequences of the protests, according to authorities.

Boluarte on Saturday countered protesters asking for her to step down, saying “that does not solve the problem” and that she had done her part by sending the bill to Congress.

On Friday, Peru’s Congress rejected the proposed constitutional reform to move elections forward to December 2023. Some members of Congress have called for the legislature to reconsider the proposal.

“I demand that the vote to bring elections up be reconsidered,” Boluarte said, criticizing Congress members who had previously abstained from voting.

She also dismissed calls for a constitutional assembly, saying it was “not the time.” Some leftist leaders have called for the assembly, which would redraft Peru’s 1993 constitution, to boost the state’s role in the economy.

Boluarte said there would be a reshuffling of her Cabinet in the coming days as well, following the resignation of the education minister and culture minister Friday.

“We will have a recomposition of the Cabinet, to be able to install knowledgeable ministers in each sector,” she said.

The Cabinet departures Friday raise questions about the longevity of Boluarte’s government, which has been rocked by political turbulence.

Protests since the arrest of former President Castillo, who is in pretrial detention while facing charges of rebellion and conspiracy, have crippled Peru’s transport system, shuttering airports and blocking highways.

On Wednesday, Boluarte’s government announced a state of emergency, granting police special powers and limiting citizens’ rights, including the right to assembly.

Protesters have also blockaded Peru’s borders, leaving tourists stranded and strangling trade.

“We want the immediate closure of Congress; we want the resignation of Dina Boluarte,” Rene Mendoza, a protester at the border with Bolivia, told Reuters. “Today the Peruvian people are in mourning. … The whole of Peru is in a struggle.”

The head of Peru’s armed forces, Manuel Gomez, slammed protesters during the news conference. “These bad people are moving from actions that are violent to actions that are terroristic.”

Later Saturday, police raided the headquarters of a leftist party and a peasant group in the capital, Lima, under suspicion of protecting such “violent” actors, the agents claimed.

Leftist politicians rejected the raids. “The state of emergency is being used to commit abuses,” said legislator Sigrid Bazan, who went to one of the sites.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appear in court in the Bahamas on Monday to reverse his decision to contest extradition to the United States, where he faces fraud charges, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

The cryptocurrency mogul was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on Dec. 13 and accused of engaging in a scheme to defraud FTX customers.

His decision to consent to extradition would pave the way for him to appear in U.S. court to face charges of using stolen customer deposits to pay for expenses and debts and to make investments on behalf of his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.

Still, any trial is likely more than a year away, legal experts told Reuters.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested on Dec. 12 in the Bahamas, where he lives and where FTX is based. He was remanded on Tuesday to the Caribbean nation’s Fox Hill prison after Chief Magistrate JoyAnn Ferguson rejected his request to remain at home while awaiting a hearing on his extradition to the United States.

Neither a spokesman nor a U.S.-based lawyer for Bankman-Fried immediately responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.

Bankman-Fried had made a new bail application before the Bahamas Supreme Court on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters at the time.

Bankman-Fried amassed a fortune valued at over $20 billion as he rode a cryptocurrency boom to build FTX into one of the world’s largest exchanges before it abruptly collapsed this year.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, described the collapse of FTX as one of the “biggest financial frauds in American history.” Bankman-Fried has acknowledged risk management failures at FTX but has said he did not believe he had any criminal liability.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Bankman-Fried to change his mind and decide not to contest extradition.

The U.S. State Department in a 2021 report said conditions at Fox Hill were “harsh,” citing overcrowding, rodent infestation and prisoners relying on buckets as toilets. Authorities there say conditions have since improved.

Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years in prison if ultimately convicted of all eight counts he faces in the United States, though any sentence would ultimately be determined by a judge based on a range of factors.

Related Galleries:

Most of the jewels stolen from a historic Dresden art collection in 2019 in a $120 million heist have been recovered, German police and prosecutors said on Saturday.

The 31 pieces, including a breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle and an ornate diamond head-dress, had been secured by investigators in Berlin, authorities said.

Their return followed negotiations between prosecutors and defence lawyers for the Germans who are on trial for the November 2019 break-in at the Gruenes Gewoelbe (Green Vault) Museum.

In all, the pieces stolen from one of Europe’s greatest art collections contained more than 4,300 diamonds with an estimated value of more than 113 million euros ($120 million).

Prosecutors believe the thieves sawed through part of a window grating in advance and reattached it to get into the building as quickly as possible during the heist.

The returned pieces will be examined by specialists “to confirm their authenticity and intactness,” authorities said.

Pieces still missing include an epaulette on which a precious stone known as the Dresden White Diamond was mounted.

($1 = 0.9450 euros)

Related Galleries:

Black Lollipop/Getty Images

• Over 6,000 adults around the world shared their “bad gift” experiences in a new survey.
• Twenty-eight percent of respondents thought defective discount items were the worst.
• Candles also aren’t considered a great gift choice, Women’s Health Magazine reports.

If you’re thinking about giving a gift from the clearance rack, thousands of respondents in one global survey are begging you to think again.

More than 6,000 adults from the US, UK, Spain, and Germany shared their opinions and experiences with “bad” holiday gifts in a survey from ContextLogic Inc. — the parent company of e-commerce site Wish, according to Fox Business.

Defective items bought at a discounted price topped the list, while 10% of respondents said knockoff luxury items weren’t a good idea. Gifts related to weight loss — including a scale, a gym membership, and other weight loss items — also were among the top 10 worst gifts, according to the respondents.

Though not on ContextLogic’s list of bad gifts, candles have taken hits for being less than ideal, according to Women’s Health Magazine’s “13 Gifts That Are Better Than A Candle.” The article suggests a list of items with “more personality” than a candle. 

The list of the 10 “worst gift ideas,” according to thousands of adults around the world.

Defective items bought at discount (28%)

Fruitcake (23%)

Weight loss items (21%)

Political gifts (20%)

Out-of-style clothing (16%)

Cheap chocolates (13%)

Christmas ties (13%)

Weight scale (12%)

Knockoff luxury items (10%)

Gym membership (10%)

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to appear in court in the Bahamas on Monday to reverse his decision to contest extradition to the United States, where he faces fraud charges, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

The cryptocurrency mogul was indicted in federal court in Manhattan on Dec. 13 and accused of engaging in a scheme to defraud FTX customers.

His decision to consent to extradition would pave the way for him to appear in U.S. court to face charges of using stolen customer deposits to pay for expenses and debts and to make investments on behalf of his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.

Still, any trial is likely more than a year away, legal experts told Reuters.

Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested on Dec. 12 in the Bahamas, where he lives and where FTX is based. He was remanded on Tuesday to the Caribbean nation’s Fox Hill prison after Chief Magistrate JoyAnn Ferguson rejected his request to remain at home while awaiting a hearing on his extradition to the United States.

Neither a spokesman nor a U.S.-based lawyer for Bankman-Fried immediately responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.

Bankman-Fried had made a new bail application before the Bahamas Supreme Court on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters at the time.

Bankman-Fried amassed a fortune valued at over $20 billion as he rode a cryptocurrency boom to build FTX into one of the world’s largest exchanges before it abruptly collapsed this year.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, described the collapse of FTX as one of the “biggest financial frauds in American history.” Bankman-Fried has acknowledged risk management failures at FTX but has said he did not believe he had any criminal liability.

It was not immediately clear what prompted Bankman-Fried to change his mind and decide not to contest extradition.

The U.S. State Department in a 2021 report said conditions at Fox Hill were “harsh,” citing overcrowding, rodent infestation and prisoners relying on buckets as toilets. Authorities there say conditions have since improved.

Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years in prison if ultimately convicted of all eight counts he faces in the United States, though any sentence would ultimately be determined by a judge based on a range of factors.

Related Galleries:

TUNIS (Reuters) -Only 8.8% of Tunisian voters cast ballots in Saturday’s parliamentary elections, authorities announced, after most political parties boycotted the vote as a charade aimed at shoring up presidential power.

The provisional turnout figure is lower than November’s 9.8% inflation rate – underscoring the economic pressures that have left many Tunisians disillusioned with politics and infuriated with their leaders.

“Why should I vote? … I am not convinced by this election,” said Abdl Hamid Naji as he sat near a polling station on Saturday morning. “In the previous elections, I was the first to arrive… But now I’m not interested.”

The election comes 12 years to the day after vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in an act of protest that sparked the Arab Spring and brought democracy to Tunisia.

But that democratic legacy has been thrown into ever more doubt by political changes made by President Kais Saied since he shut down the previous, more powerful, parliament in July 2021 and moved to rule by decree, amassing ever more power.

Saied, a former law lecturer who was a political independent when elected president in 2019, wrote a new constitution this year diluting parliament’s powers to make it subordinate to the presidency with little sway over government.

The president has presented his changes as necessary to save Tunisia from years of political paralysis and economic stagnation, and on Saturday morning he urged voters to take part in the election.

However, few Tunisians that Reuters has spoken to over recent weeks said they were interested, seeing the new parliament as irrelevant and the vote as a distraction from an economic crisis wrecking their lives.

Saturday’s very low turnout will give Saied’s critics fresh ammunition to question the legitimacy of his agenda.

That may become a problem for the president as his government wrestles with implementing unpopular economic reforms such as subsidy cuts to secure an international bailout of state finances.

The economy shrank by more than 8% during the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery has been slow. Some basic foodstuffs and medicines have disappeared from shelves and ever more Tunisians are braving the dangers of an illicit Mediterranean crossing to seek a new life in Europe.

The political parties that dominated the previous parliament, elected in 2019 with a turnout of about 40%, have accused Saied of a coup for his shutdown of parliament last year and say he has instituted one-man rule.

Under Saied’s new electoral law, which he passed by decree, political parties would have had a far smaller role in the election even if they had taken part. Party affiliation was not included on ballot papers next to candidate names.

The electoral commission head Farouk Bouasker, who announced the turnout figure, described it as “modest but not shameful”, ascribing it to the new voting system and a lack of paid election campaigning.

At one polling station voter Faouzi Ayarai had said she was optimistic about the new parliament. “These elections are an opportunity to fix the bad situation left by others over the past years,” she said.

But I Watch, a non-governmental watchdog organisation formed after the 2011 revolution, said the new parliament had been “emptied of all powers”.

Al Bawsala, another NGO that has monitored the work of parliament since the revolution, has said it will halt its work at a legislature that it also thinks will be an instrument for the president.

With the main parties absent, a total of 1,058 candidates – only 120 of them women – were running for 161 seats.

For 10 of those – seven in Tunisia and three decided by expatriate voters – there was just one candidate. A further seven of the seats decided by expatriate voters had no candidates running at all.