OAN Geraldyn Berry
UPDATED 5:48 PM PT – Tuesday, February 28, 2023
FTX’s co-founder and Director of Engineering Nishad Singh has pleaded guilty to U.S. federal fraud and conspiracy charges.
“Nishad is deeply sorry for his role in this and has accepted responsibility for his actions. He wants to do everything he can to make things right for victims, including by assisting the government to the best of his ability in this case,” Singh’s lawyers said in a statement.
Singh entered a plea of guilty to six federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. of campaign finance rules and wire fraud. According to Reuters, he consented to lose the earnings from his acts.
According to bankruptcy records, Singh borrowed $543 million from Alameda, a cryptocurrency trading and hedge fund company that is FTX’s sibling.
Singh acknowledged using money from Alameda Research to make unauthorized contributions to political politicians and PACs under his name. According to The Wall Street Journal, he stated the gifts were made to increase FTX and Bankman-Fried’s political influence. While not revealing the candidates, Singh said, he supported the positions of people to whom he gave money. During the 2022 election season, he gave $8 million to Democrat PACs and campaigns, according to OpenSecrets.
Singh added that he learned in the middle of 2022 that Alameda was borrowing billions of dollars in consumer funds from FTX. By September, it had become clear that Alameda wouldn’t be able to pay back the money. Singh further asserted that he fabricated FTX’s sales figures at SBF’s direction to attract investors.
Former executives from FTX who have previously pleaded guilty to fraud charges are Caroline Ellison and Zixiao “Gary” Wang.
As a CoinDesk article revealed Alameda had an unusually significant amount of FTT tokens, which were created by FTX, FTX collapsed in November. Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, indicated it would liquidate its own FTT holdings, which set off a chain reaction that resulted in FTX filing for bankruptcy along with almost 100 other subsidiaries and affiliated businesses.
By: OAN
