Sam Bankman-Fried, the former crypto exchange executive, is set to leave the Bahamas for the United States, where he will face federal charges for fraud, according to several reports who heard the court hearing live on Wednesday.
Bankman-Fried could arrive in New York as soon as Wednesday afternoon, according to the New York Times. The exact timing of the proceedings is unclear, but he will be arraigned in the Federal District Court in Manhattan. In Magistrate Court on Wednesday morning, he confirmed that he signed legal documents authorizing the relocation, which he had requested on Monday.
Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Dec. 12 at his luxury apartment, where he was living while running his now collapsed crypto exchange FTX. He faces eight criminal charges in total, including securities and wire fraud and money laundering.
For the past week, Bankman-Fried had been at Fox Hill prison, where his request for bail was denied by a magistrate judge. On Monday, he appeared in court in front of a new magistrate judge to ask to be extradited to the U.S., after initially fighting against extradition last week. His request was granted in the most recent hearing on Wednesday.