Sam Bankman-Fried grilled on ‘cozy’ relationship with Bahamas officials

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was grilled on Tuesday about what a U.S. prosecutor called his "cozy" relationship with officials in the Bahamas, where the cryptocurrency exchange was based before its November 2022 collapse. During Bankman-Fried's second day of cross-examination at his fraud trial, prosecutor Danielle Sassoon sought to link favors that he did for Bahamian officials with his decision to let FTX customers there withdraw their funds after withdrawals for others had been halted around Nov. 9, 2022. "I asked if that's what they had wanted me to do," Bankman-Fried said in Manhattan federal court, referring to the exemption for Bahamian users from the withdrawal ban.