Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering at now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was found guilty of six crimes at a court hearing Tuesday as U.S. prosecutors step up their investigation into members of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle. pleaded guilty to fraud.
Singh pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, three counts of conspiracy to defraud, one count of conspiracy to launder money, and one count of conspiracy to deceive the United States in violation of campaign finance laws. U.S. District Court Judge Louis Kaplan accepted the petition.
“Today’s guilty plea underscores once again the sheer scope and consequences of the crimes at FTX,” said Manhattan federal attorney Damian Williams. “They rocked our financial markets with billions of dollars of fraud. And they corrupted our politics with tens of millions of dollars of illegal straw campaign donations. They demand quick and certain justice, and that’s what we want in the Southern District of New York.”
FTX founder Bankman-Fried was indicted in December on eight counts of fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors say he stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to cover losses at hedge fund Alameda Research and lied to investors and lenders about the company’s financial position.
he pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have repeatedly urged people known to be cheating on FTX to come forward.
The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried has ridden the skyrocketing value of Bitcoin and other digital assets, amassing an estimated net worth of $26 billion and becoming an influential US political donor.
Singh has also become a major donor to Democratic politicians, contributing $8 million to campaigns for the 2022 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.
In a new indictment filed against Bankman-Fried last week, prosecutors found that he conspired with two other former FTX executives to donate tens of millions of dollars to pass laws in the company’s favor. He said he worked with lawmakers to
Catch up on The Post’s latest on Sam Bankman and Freed’s FTX scandal
Prosecutors said the donation was illegal because it was funded by “straw” donors or corporations. He said he directed support groups to donate more than $21 million.
Singh donated $1.1 million to the LGBTQ Victory Fund on July 7, 2022, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Shin’s plea came after two of Bankman-Fried’s closest associates agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in December.
Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX Chief Technology Officer Gary Wang pleaded guilty to seven and four criminal charges, respectively.
Shin, 27, was Bankman-Fried’s brother’s best friend in high school, Bankman-Fried wrote in a now-deleted blog post. According to CNBC, after working at Alameda, Singh became FTX’s director of engineering in 2019.
In 2020, Singh tweaked FTX’s software to exempt Alameda from automatically selling assets if it loses a large amount of debt, Reuters reported in December.
This exemption allowed Alameda to continue borrowing from FTX regardless of the amount of collateral securing the loan.
“Be extra careful not to liquidate,” Singh said in a comment on the platform’s code seen by Reuters.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has filed civil fraud charges against Bankman-Fried, says the code change gave Alameda a “virtually unlimited line of credit” on FTX.
He also said that billions of dollars FTX secretly lent to Alameda over the next two years came from FTX customers.
