Former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has hired a defense attorney as US financial regulators are probing the crypto exchange, Reuters reports, citing Bankman-Fried's spokesperson Mark Botnick.
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FTX Founder has reportedly hired Mark Cohen, a former federal prosecutor, who represented Ghislaine Maxwell in her sex trafficking trial and Mexican former drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Alameda Research boss, Caroline Ellison, has also hired lawyers from Washington-based law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale.
Although neither Bankman-Fried nor Ellison have been charged with a crime, they are still facing lawsuits giving that US authorities have initiated investigations against the exchange.
As iHodl earlier reported, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alongside the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are investigating FTX's relationships with Alameda Research, a trading firm also founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.
FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US in early November after it had faced a liquidity crisis. The Bahamas-based trading platform allegedly owes nearly $3.1 billion to top 50 creditors.
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