FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried charged with defrauding crypto investors

FTX (Marta Lavandier/AP)

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the former chief executive of failed cryptocurrency firm FTX with orchestrating a scheme to defraud investors.

An SEC complaint filed on Tuesday alleges that Sam Bankman-Fried raised more than 1.8 billion  dollars (£1.4 billion) from equity investors since May 2019 by promoting FTX as a safe, responsible platform for trading crypto assets.