Advisers working with the bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX, have been cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sharing customer transaction and account data, as revealed in court documents obtained by Bloomberg.
In response to subpoenas issued by multiple FBI field offices over the past several months, FTX consultants have provided law enforcement authorities with records of specific customer trades conducted on the crypto exchange during its bankruptcy proceedings.
The disclosed FBI requests are detailed in billing records associated with Alvarez and Marsal, a consultancy firm acting as financial advisers for FTX.
This cooperation involved the extraction of information related to certain customers’ trades for FBI offices located in Portland, Philadelphia, Oakland, Minneapolis, and Cleveland.
The billing records do not offer insights into the nature of the FBI’s investigation or the identity of the specific target involved, although one of the records does mention the existence of a grand jury subpoena.
In a formal court filing, Alvarez and Marsal acknowledged sharing transaction data from FTX’s cloud computing provider in September, responding to a subpoena from the FBI’s Philadelphia office.
In July, they investigated customer accounts and transactions in accordance with a request from the FBI’s Oakland office.
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Additionally, in August, the consultancy firm extracted customer information pertaining to specific transactions, complying with a subpoena from the FBI’s Portland office.
The costs associated with these services provided by advisers will ultimately be borne by FTX customers. As per Bloomberg’s report, during the months of July, August, and September, two advisers billed more than $21,000 for their FBI-related services.
In total, Alvarez and Marsal have accrued nearly $100 million in fees from FTX since November 2022, as per court records.
These fees will be deducted from the recoveries intended for FTX customers.
Notably, FTX’s new CEO, John J. Ray III, recently unveiled a potential ray of hope for the exchange’s customers.
He announced that, thanks to a proposed settlement between FTX creditors and debtors, customers could expect to recoup over 90% of their assets by the close of 2024, offering a glimmer of optimism amidst the tumultuous bankruptcy proceedings.
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