While FTX collapsed just a few months ago, the fallout of the defunct crypto exchange is still developing. Today, FTX’s former director of engineering Nishad Singh pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud and conspiracy as court cases into FTX higher-ups continue.
As detailed by Reuters, the counts include one count of wire fraud, three counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States by violating campaign finance laws. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who serves the Southern District of New York, accepted the plea today.
“I am unbelievably sorry for my role in all of this,” Singh said in court, according to Reuters. The outlet is reporting that he also admitted that he knew about former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research, borrowing FTX customer funds behind customer’s backs.
Singh was allegedly a close friend of Bankman-Fried’s younger brother when the two were in high school. After working at FTX’s affiliated trading firm Alameda Research, Singh moved to FTX as director of engineering in 2019. Singh’s plea deal comes as the result of yet another investigation into Bankman-Fried’s inner circle.
FTX collapsed this past November as the cryptocurrency exchange could not meet the withdrawal demand of its users. A bombshell report from Coinbase pointed to the eventual revelation that FTX had used customer funds to fuel investments into its co-owned trading firm Alameda Research, leading FTX to eventually file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Court-appointed FTX CEO John Ray III said he’d never seen “such an utter failure of corporate controls at every level of an organisation,” referring to FTX.
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