Court documents filed on Jan. 27 revealed that The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan to ban Bankman-Fried from communicating with employees who are either currently working or used to work previously at FTX or Alameda.
The prosecutors also requested that Bankman-Fried be banned from using encrypted communication applications. The document further alleged that SBF's use of Signal is consistent with "a history" of using the application for obstructive purposes.
It was previously reported in December 2022 that SBF denied any involvement or knowledge of a “Wirefraud” group chat on Signal, hours before his arrest by Bahamian police.
The group chat reportedly included members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, including FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang, FTX engineer Nishad Singh and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison – who allegedly used the group to send secret information about FTX and Alameda in the lead-up to the collapse.
This comes after lawyers representing FTX in the bankruptcy proceedings had reportedly argued on Jan. 26 that Bankman-Fried’s immediate family should face questioning regarding any financial benefits they may have received from the exchange.