Warren, Whitehouse ask DOJ to hold Bankman-Fried accountable for FTX collapse

Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse have asked the Justice Department not to pull any punches as it investigates and seeks to hold accountable the executives at FTX who contributed to the crypto company's demise.

Top U.S. Derivatives Watchdog Testifies Before Senate Agriculture Committee On Crypto
Sam Bankman-Fried during a hearing in Washington.
Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg

FTX's customers face potentially steep losses after former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried's empire spiraled into bankruptcy earlier this month. An attorney representing the firm told a judge Tuesday that a "substantial amount" of the group's assets have either been stolen or gone missing. Authorities in the U.S. and the Bahamas are investigating the FTX turmoil, including a probe by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

"As this situation unfolds, new facts will undoubtedly shed more light on how Bankman-Fried and his associates' deception has harmed FTX's customers, and customers of any company that was exposed to the contagion — and may reveal that the problems with the crypto industry extend well beyond FTX," the senators wrote in a letter sent to DOJ officials Wednesday.

"We urge the Department to center these 'flesh-and-blood victims' as it investigates, and, if it deems necessary, prosecute the individuals responsible for their harm," they said.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate, including Warren, have opened their own probes into FTX's collapse. A number of key committees are also planning hearings for next month.

Warren and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin previously sent a letter to Bankman-Fried and John J. Ray III, the new CEO and chief restructuring officer who oversaw the liquidation of Enron Corp., seeking additional information on the events leading up to the crisis.

"One thing is clear: the public is owed a complete and transparent accounting of the business practices and financial activities leading up to and following FTX's collapse and the loss of billions of dollars of customer funds," they wrote in that letter, which specified a deadline of Nov. 28 to comply with the request for information.

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