Third top FTX executive pleads guilty in fraud investigation

A former high-ranking colleague of Sam Bankman-fried on Tuesday became the third person to plead guilty to criminal charges arising from the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and will cooperate with federal prosecutors.

Nishad Singh, 27, an FTX founder who went on to serve as its director of engineering, pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations. The plea requires him to work with federal prosecutors as they pursue the billion- dollar fraud case against Bankman-fried.

Singh’s cooperation heightens the pressure on Bankman-fried, 30, who has been charged with orchestrating a scheme to defraud customers and investors. Bankman-fried was extradited to the United States on Dec. 21 after his arrest in the Bahamas, where FTX was based.

That night, federal prosecutors announced that two executives in his inner circle, Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison, were cooperating with the investigation and had pleaded guilty to fraud.

Singh was a key figure at FTX who worked closely with Bankman-fried, Wang and Ellison. In the plea agreement, authorities said Singh had knowledge of or participated in an effort “to artificially inflate FTX’S revenue,” and provided false or misleading information to auditors and regulators.

FTX filed for bankruptcy in November after the crypto equivalent of a bank run exposed an $8 billion hole in its accounts. Its implosion punctuated a meltdown in the crypto industry. Authorities have accused Bankman-fried of using customer funds to finance political contributions, buy lavish real estate and make investments in more than 300 companies and other ventures.

On Feb. 23, federal prosecutors announced a revised indictment against Bankman-fried that included several new charges and detailed the alleged scheme to defraud customers and investors and funnel tens of millions in illegal campaign contributions to political candidates and political action committees.

Bankman-fried pleaded not guilty in January to the original indictment and is expected to return to New York in the next few months to be arraigned on the revised charges, according to a court filing.