Enlarge / FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried is escorted out of the Justice of the Peace’s Courtroom on December 21, 2022 in Nassau, Bahamas. (credit score: Joe Raedle / Getty Photos)

Two of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s closest associates have pleaded responsible to fraud and agreed to co-operate with US authorities investigating the collapse of the bankrupt cryptocurrency trade, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan mentioned on Wednesday.

Damian Williams, the US lawyer for the Southern District of New York, introduced the responsible pleas and prison fees towards Caroline Ellison, former chief government of FTX buying and selling affiliate Alameda Analysis, and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, a co-founder of FTX, in a brief video assertion. His workplace had introduced eight fees towards Bankman-Fried final week.

The announcement from Williams got here simply after a airplane carrying Bankman-Fried took off from the Bahamas, the place he waived his proper to problem extradition to the US. He landed in New York late on Wednesday, native media reported, and is because of seem in a Manhattan court docket as quickly as Thursday, the place his bail request might be thought of.

The trio of longtime buddies have been among the many key members of a good circle of associates who ran Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, which included the FTX cryptocurrency exchanges and Alameda Analysis, the personal buying and selling agency. All three had lived along with different senior executives in a luxurious residence in Nassau’s Albany complicated.