The Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) has obtained a court order to seize digital assets worth $3.5 billion belonging to FTX Digital Markets Ltd.
FTX Digital Markets Ltd is the Bahamian subsidiary of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Trading Ltd., which owned and operated the crypto trading platform FTX.com.
The SCB which wants to move the assets to its secure wallets will hold them temporarily until further notice from the court is received to transfer the funds to the owners.
An affidavit filed with the Bahamas Supreme Court read “All transferred assets were and remain under the sole control of the commission,
“The Commission … took the action of directing the transfer of all digital assets under the custody or control of FTXDM or its principals, valued at more than US$3.5 billion, based on market pricing at the time of transfer, to digital wallets controlled by the Commission, for safekeeping.
“The seized cryptocurrencies “are being held by the Commission on a temporary basis, until such time as the Bahamas Supreme Court directs the Commission to deliver them to the customers and creditors who own them, or to the JPLs [Joint Provisional Liquidators] to be administered under rules governing the insolvency estate for the benefit of the customers and creditors of FTXDM,”.
Following the collapse of FTX, authorities in the Bahamas sought to access FTX’s records to help in the liquidation of FTX DM.
This plan, however, fell through due to the refusal of the firm’s bankruptcy team in the US to grant access.
