FTX cofounders' Robinhood shares worth over $450 million seized

Companies • January 9, 2023, 8:46AM EST

Quick Take

More than 55 million shares of Robinhood stock owned by FTX co-founders Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang have been seized by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The U.S. Department of Justice seized more than $456 million in Robinhood shares owned by FTX co-founders Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang.

A court filing dated Jan. 6 says the shares were seized because they constitute property involved in money laundering or wire fraud violations.

A lawyer for the Justice Department last week said that the it was seizing hundreds of millions of dollars in Robinhood shares linked to FTX. Bankman-Fried responded by filing a court action to block debtors from taking control of his stake in Robinhood.

The disgraced former CEO owns 90% of Emergent Fidelity Technologies, an entity that owns more than 50 million shares in Robinhood stock. Bankman-Fried stepped down as FTX CEO when the firm filed for bankruptcy protection in November.

Disclaimer: The former CEO and majority shareholder of The Block has disclosed a series of loans from former FTX and Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

About Author

Adam is the managing editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is based in central Europe and was a managing editor and podcast host at the crypto exchange OKX's former research arm, OKX Insights. Before that, he co-founded BeInCrypto.com, which he elevated into one of the leading crypto media brands at its peak as the editor-in-chief. Earlier, he served as the editor-in-chief at Bitcoinist.com. Before joining the blockchain and crypto industry, he worked for Looper.com, Grunge.com and SVG.com. He tweets via @XBT002 and can be emailed at [email protected].