FTX director of engineering Pleads Guilty To US Criminal Charges (SEE DETAILS)

Former FTX director of engineering, Nishad Singh has pleaded guilty to a series of US criminal charges and will cooperate with investigators in the probe into FTX founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Singh has admitted to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States by violating campaign finance laws.

Singh’s guilty plea follows the similar admissions of Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, the former chief technology officer of FTX.

According to prosecutors, Singh knew by mid-2022 that Alameda Research was borrowing FTX customer funds, and customers were unaware of it. He will now forfeit proceeds from the scheme.

Singh is 27 years old, and he travelled from the Bahamas to assist the US investigation after FTX collapsed in November.

Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges filed against him in December, including accusations of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda.

He has acknowledged inadequate risk management but denied stealing the money. Last week, prosecutors unsealed a new indictment against Bankman-Fried, who now faces 12 criminal charges. His spokesperson declined to comment.

Singh and Bankman-Fried have both made significant donations to Democratic politicians. Singh contributed $8m to campaigns during the 2022 election cycle, while Bankman-Fried amassed an estimated $26bn net worth and became an influential political donor.

The new charges against Bankman-Fried accuse him of conspiring with two other former FTX executives to donate tens of millions of dollars to influence lawmakers to pass legislation favorable to the company. The donations were illegal because they were made with “straw” donors or corporate funds. Bankman-Fried directed another FTX executive to donate more than $21m to a pro-LGBT group, according to prosecutors. Federal Election Commission records show that Singh contributed $1.1m on July 7, 2022, to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a national organization dedicated to electing openly LGBTQ people.

Singh said in court that he agreed in 2022 to make political donations in his own name that were funded in part by transfers from Alameda without providing details of the donations. He said that while he agreed with the political leanings of those he donated to, he did not select the candidates.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have also filed civil lawsuits against Singh.

“Today’s guilty plea underscores once again that the crimes at FTX were vast in scope and consequence,” said Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan. “They rocked our financial markets with a multibillion-dollar fraud, and they corrupted our politics with tens of millions of dollars in illegal straw campaign contributions.”