CryptoWatch: FTX's Case in Court and India's Investigation on Money Laundering via Cryptocurrency

In this week of CryptoWatch, the industry is seeing a significant probe into what is happening behind the scenes, which went unnoticed by the public and regulators for a long time. FTX, under Sam Bankman-Fried, was revealed of its lavish spending and purchases on its creditors, alongside his revised bail package.

There is also the Indian government's probe of money laundering, which involves cryptocurrency. Its regulators now want to get to the bottom of and solve this issue.

FTX Creditors: $400,000 Worth of DoorDash Deliveries

The recent development on the FTX hearing is the publication of its creditors' list and the specific spending for each company they had businesses with. One of the most controversial and eye-catching was with DoorDash, with FTX ordering a whopping $400,000 worth of food and drinks in only two months.

The company's press release detailed its former management's many egregious spendings and purchases, including its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Reports claim that this excessive spending mainly was from its previous administration, despite facing the threat of bankruptcy and seeing debts pile up from different funds and entities.

Sam Bankman-Fried's Team Appealing Bail

Sam Bankman-Fried's bail was a controversial $250 million, including the former CEO being under house arrest as he was deemed a flight risk before. The executive's legal team recently made known its plans to submit a revised bail package to the courts that would properly address what SBF may be able to access or do during his house arrest time.

SBF previously faced scrutiny as he was known to have used an encrypted messaging app, Signal Messenger, to contact former colleagues from Alameda Research and FTX.

Judge Lewis Kaplan deemed this a violation of his bail prohibitions, considering that he avoided a jail cell for his home.

Since then, SBF could only use a flip phone without internet for his communication needs.

India's Probe in Crypto Money Laundering

Money laundering is illegal worldwide, and many have resorted to using cryptocurrency to avoid detection and popping up on the radar of law enforcement for this case. Since cryptocurrency is decentralized, it is an ideal money laundering scheme, but India is not having it, as it is still a criminal activity to hide illicit funds.

According to TechCrunch's report, the Indian government is investigating many money laundering schemes in their country, using digital currency to hide their activities. Still, this is something that the government and its regulators aim to catch, especially as there is a growing rate of money laundering involving cryptocurrency in the country.

India has already seized as much as $115.5 million of laundered money on its operations.