Judge orders Samuel Bankman-Fried to stop using a VPN after his lawyers claim he only used one to watch the Super Bowl

• Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried said Tuesday that their client used a VPN to watch the Super Bowl.
• Prosecutors had expressed concern that Bankman-Fried could be accessing cryptocurrency exchanges.

When prosecutors discovered that the indicted founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange was using a virtual private network to access the internet, they expressed concern that he was potentially using it to trade crypto, in violation of his bail terms, or to access the so-called "dark web," a hotbed of illicit activity. But lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried on Tuesday claimed that their client, facing multiple charges of fraud and a pending criminal trial, was only watching football — and that he wouldn't do it again.

Bankman-Fried's use of a VPN was flagged on Monday in a letter to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in which Assistant US Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon conceded that "many individuals use a VPN for benign purposes." But given the charges against Bankman-Fried, she said there were "several potential concerns" about his use of the technology, which uses encryption to allow internet users to mask their IP address.

In their response on Tuesday, Bankman-Fried's attorneys asserted that their client only used a VPN "to access an NFL Game Pass international subscription that he had previously purchased when he resided in the Bahamas, so that he could watch NFL playoff games," including Sunday night's Super Bowl matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.

To allay any concerns, however, the attorneys said Bankman-Fried would immediately stop using the VPN.

On Tuesday afternoon, Judge Kaplan made that a condition of his bail, adding the use of a VPN to a list of other prohibited internet activities, Reuters reported. Bankman-Fried was already prohibited from using encrypted messaging apps, in part due to concern he could seek to intimidate or influence FTX employees. Use of a VPN, Kaplan ruled, "presents many of the same challenges."

In December, Bankman-Fried was charged with eight counts of fraud and conspiracy related to "misappropriating" customer funds at FTX, which filed for bankruptcy last November. Prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried used deposits in the cryptocurrency exchange to finance investments placed through Alameda Research, another company he founded.

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