Former FTX Executive Nishad Singh Planning to Plead Guilty to Fraud: Bloomberg

Nishad Singh, the former director of engineering for collapsed crypto exchange FTX, is planning to plead guilty to fraud charges for his role in the alleged scheme, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg reported Singh’s plea deal with the federal prosecutors’ office in New York has not yet been finalized, and it was not immediately clear what the outcome of the plea deal would be for Singh.

If Singh takes a plea deal, he will join the ranks of other members of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, including former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, FTX co-founder and former chief technology officer, who are cooperating with prosecutors in their case against the former FTX CEO. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to eight felony charges, and is set to go on trial in the fall.

The Department of Justice did not immediately return a request for comment.

Singh is also reportedly facing potential charges from regulators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for his role in the scheme.

According to filings from the FTX bankruptcy estate headed by John Jay Ray III, Singh received a $543 million personal loan from Alameda Research.

Singh, 27, is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, where he met his longtime girlfriend, Claire Watanabe, who would later join FTX as its head of marketing and HR. The pair resided in the luxurious Bahamas penthouse with Bankman-Fried, Ellison, Wang and Singh and Watanabe's goldendoodle dog.

Like Bankman-Fried, Ellison and Wang, Singh was an ardent supporter of effective altruism, and the quartet comprised the board of the FTX Foundation.