$6 Million Fraud in US: 27-Yr-Old Indian Caught

Nishad Singh is barely 27 and was looked upon as a reliable and safe bet among his colleagues at FTX, the company from which he withdrew around $6 million at the time of its collapse.

Nishad has pleaded guilty to six charges of fraud, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to violate federal campaign finance laws. Singh was born to San Francisco-based Indian-origin parents and went to an upmarket, elitist school where he was friends with his partners at FTX.

Nishad Singh, who was the former director of engineering at FTX, is now cooperating with US prosecutors for his role in the billion-dollar scam at the crypto-trading platform. Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, and Caroline Ellison, who is the former head of FTX’s sister hedge fund Alameda Research, have all pleaded guilty in the case.

Singh and his co-conspirators were siphoning customer funds using the software code developed by Nishad Singh. He also withdrew $6 million for personal expenditure and bought a multi-million dollar house, and made donations to charitable causes.

Nishad Singh worked with Facebook for some time before seeing an opportunity in cryptocurrency, and he was a TEDx speaker who spoke of how he overcame asthma to become a runner. He was also known to have been a proponent of effective altruism, where one earns big bucks to aid charitable causes.