The Securities Commission of The Bahamas announced Thursday they have taken control of cryptocurrency assets held by a unit of bankrupt exchange FTX.
In a press statement Thursday evening, the Caribbean country authority said it had exercised “its powers as a regulator” and directed the transfer of “all digital assets” of FTX Digital Markets, a Bahamian subsidiary of FTX.
“Urgent interim regulatory action was necessary to protect the interests of clients and creditors”, the agency said.
The value of the assets seized is unknown. Quoted by CNBC, crypto research firm Elliptic believes that a $477 million theft reported over this weekend was tied to moves by the Bahamian regulator, suggesting that the “hack” was actually the seizure of FTX assets by the Bahamian authority.
The move comes hours after the former Enron lawyer John Ray III, who is overseeing the cryptocurrency exchange bankruptcy proceedings, said in a court filing that he has never seen in his 40-year career “such a complete failure of corporate controls.”
The filing said the crypto company was massively mismanaged and potentially fraudulent. Besides unreliable financial statements and the mishandling of confidential data the filling said corporate funds were used to buy homes for employees in the Bahamas.
