Photos show squalid conditions at the Bahamas prison where Sam Bankman-Fried will spend his holidays - Creak News

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Photos show squalid conditions at the Bahamas prison where Sam Bankman-Fried will spend his holidays

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A corrections officer at Fox Hill looks in on a crowded cell of prisoners.
Fox Hill is known to be overcrowded and have unsanitary conditions, per human rights reports.
  • A judge in the Bahamas ordered Sam Bankman-Fried remanded to custody during a Monday hearing.
  • The former FTX CEO will spend the next two months at Fox Hill, the Bahamas' only prison.
  • Photos from the facility show overcrowding and squalid conditions. 

Sam Bankman-Fried is set to spend his holidays incarcerated in the Bahamas' only prison after a magistrate judge ordered him remanded to custody on Tuesday following his arrest on US fraud charges.

The Fox Hill correctional center, located in Nassau, is known for its harsh conditions and overcrowding, according to human rights reports. Bankman-Fried, 30, has already joined hundreds of other detainees at the prison after a judge this week said he posed a "great" flight risk. 

The Bahamas has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the world, with 409 per 100,000 people detained in the country, according to the World Prison Brief, an online database housed by the Institute For Crime & Justice Policy Research, Birkbeck College, University of London.

Conditions at the facility suffer due to the sheer number of prisoners incarcerated there.

A corrections officer at Fox Hill stands in front of an inmate cell.
A 2021 human rights report on The Bahamas by the US State Department found that infestations of rats, maggots, and insects were common at Fox Hill.

A combination of overcrowding and understaffing at the facility has led some inmates to only be allowed outside for 30 minutes a week, Romona Farquharson, a local attorney, told The Wall Street Journal. Space constraints have also resulted in some inmates who are awaiting trial to be housed in the center's maximum security block, Farquharson said.

Reuters reported Tuesday that Bankman-Fried will initially be held in the Fox Hill medical department. 

A 2021 human rights report on the Bahamas by the US State Department offered further insight into the squalid conditions at the center. Inmates at the facility said they had to remove human waste by bucket and were prone to bed sores after being forced to lie on the hard ground for long periods of time.

Plastic water judgs and trash cans sit outside a cell at Fox Hill.
Inmates at the facility said they had to remove human waste by bucket, according to a 2021 human rights report on the Bahamas by the US State Department.

Photos taken from a Reuters video of the facility show a tiny cell with six mattresses and one toilet. 

A Fox Hill cell with three bunk beds and a toilet.
The Fox Hill correctional center, located in Nassau, is known for its harsh conditions and overcrowding, according to human rights reports.

The State Department report also cited infestations of rats, maggots, and insects. A correctional officer in the Reuters video confirmed that rodent infestations have been a problem at the facility. 

A toilet in a cell at Fox Hill.
As many as six inmates can share one tiny cell with just one toilet.

Inmates have also said they were subjected to poor nutrition while at Fox Hill, sometimes facing long delays in between meals. Reports from Bankman-Fried's Tuesday hearing said the disgraced FTX founder and his legal team tried to use his vegan diet as a reason to be released from custody. 

Inmates at Fox Hill also cited a lack of access to proper medical care and psychological care, according to the 2021 State Department report. 

Authorities in the Bahamas detained Bankman-Fried on Monday, acting on a request from US officials. A federal criminal indictment unveiled on Tuesday charged Bankman-Fried with multiple counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations, related to the collapse of one of the largest crypto exchanges earlier this year.

Bankman-Fried resigned from his role at FTX last month after the exchange filed for bankruptcy following a liquidity disaster. Regulators and prosecutors have alleged that he duped investors and defrauded customers while at the helm of the company. 

Read the original article on Business Insider


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