According to reports, FTX co-founder Gary Wang is being held under the supervision of Bahamian authorities alongside Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). The couple are also being investigated by the country’s Financial Crimes Unit.
Bahamian law enforcement has been investigating the soon-to-be-bankrupt SBF exchange since its collapse last week and, according to an official to remark“works closely with the Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) to investigate any criminal misconduct.”
Read more: Bahamas Rhapsody: FTX Users Exploit Loophole To Withdraw Crypto
At the beginning of last week, withdrawals of FTX client assets were frozen. However, the SCB has insisted that accounts registered in the Bahamas will still be able to access their funds.
Now it looks like things have sped up with SBF and Wang being detained before they could flee to Dubai.
Protos contacted the Deputy Superintendent of the Bahamas Financial Crimes Unit, Anthony McCartney, but was told, “We cannot provide any information as investigations are ongoing.”
Who is the mysterious Gary Wang?
SBF occasionally mentions that it based FTX alongside Gary Wang in 2019. Wang is also the company’s chief technology officer and advisor to Capital Sequoiaa investment fund that has invested in various technology companies including DoorDash, Zoom, Apple and AirBnB.
His Biography on Forbes claims he graduated from MIT, worked at Google and owned a 16% share of FTX. Unfortunately, there is very little information beyond what is available online, although some have speculated that it has a GitHub.
Wang and his connection to Sequoia can also explain the origins and meteoric rise of SBF. It is often claimed that he made his money arbitrage bitcoin in 2017 by buying it in the US and selling it in Japan.
However, as Marc Cohodes recently pointed out, this would have required a significant amount of capital to be successful effectively. SBF claimed he was making around $1 million a day for about five weeks, but for that to happen he would have had to buy bitcoin at $18,000 and sell it at around $19,000 with an initial capital injection at least $18. million.
Read more: Can FTX symbolize its own bankruptcy?
So this begs the question: Where did SBF get its $18 million to run the Kimchi trade? A Forbes The list of investors who were hardest hit by the FTX bankruptcy may give us a clue. And indeed, one of the biggest investors is Gary Wang’s Sequoia Capital with a 1.1% stake and an estimated investment of $200 million.
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