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Comment by bo1024 | Hacker News Reader

I think there is a very interesting untold story in how the U.S. proactively and aggressively pursued this case.

If I recall Michael Lewis' book right:

- FTX (international) was a somewhat separate company from FTX US; SBF was convinced to fold them both into the bankruptcy proceedings.

- It was never clear that this would be under US jurisdiction at all; SBF was convinced to come to the US from the Bahamas.

- (my favorite part) After the Bahamas seized the passports of FTX employees, US officials smuggled in a new passport for at least one FTX employee in order to get them back to the US, presumably to give evidence against SBF. Who can pull those kinds of strings?

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> SBF was convinced to come to the US from the Bahamas

Because he thought he could stay out of jail there.

> US officials smuggled in a new passport for at least one FTX employee in order to get them back to the US, presumably to give evidence against SBF. Who can pull those kinds of strings?

Source?

"Smuggled" implies it was done without the consent or knowledge of the Bahamas government. Otherwise, it's standard U.S. Marshals stuff.

Source: "Going Infinite" by Michael Lewis. Chapter 9.

> Gary never said when he would leave, or how he would leave—which was an issue, as the Bahamas had taken his passport. On Sunday night, without a further word to anyone, he just slipped, unnoticed, out of the Orchid penthouse. The lawyer who spirited him off arranged with US authorities to supply him with a second passport, so that they might smuggle him back to the United States before the government of the Bahamas knew what had happened.

Going to need a better source than Moneyball Lewis on this one. He is alleging massive breaches in diplomatic protocol with zero sourcing.

I believe Lewis was there at the time, so I think this is firsthand from him. Whether you believe him or not is up to you, of course.

> believe Lewis was there at the time

Lewis was where? With the Bahamas authorities and the lawyer who got the passport and the U.S. authorities who provided it to them? And the supposed fugitive while he left?

He makes a complex allegation that seems to have been strung together from observations, which I trust him to be relaying honestly, and suppositions given things he didn't see, e.g. that this wasn't coordinated with Nassau, which I'm sceptical of.

Who can pull those kinds of strings? Dog, the CIA is tremendously powerful, and the bahamas are as powerful as a mid-sized town in iowa. whatever america wants, it gets from countries subject to the monroe doctrine.

Sure, "the CIA" can do it, but my point is that some particular person actually had to coordinate a bunch of people and actions to make this happen, quite quickly after the collapse and before it was even clear whether SBF would be prosecuted at all, let alone in what jurisdiction or on what charges.

> whatever america wants, it gets from countries subject to the monroe doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine has to do with preventing powers outside the western hemisphere interfering in Latin America, not the US imposing legal jurisdiction over the region which it obviously doesn’t especially given that Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela refuse to extradite despite having extradition treaties with the US. If you mean the US has outright hegemony in Latin America then that is easily falsified simply by pointing to the recent history of Cuba and Venezuela. Certainly the CIA has enormous reach and may have been involved but not necessarily, getting around passport confiscation could probably be handled by the State Department without too much hassle.

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