The United States government has seized a $3.7 million luxury apartment belonging to former FTX lead engineer Nishad Singh, Bloomberg reported.
Singh purchased the million-dollar vacation home featuring six bedrooms, a lap pool and a hot tub last October before the collapse of FTX.
Recall that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his associates bought properties, including vacation homes valued at around $121 million in the Bahamas, prior to the unfortunate end of the exchange in November.
However, Singh’s house was located outside the Bahamas on the San Juan islands in Washington, DC.
Singh Losses His Vacation Home After Plea Deal
According to the Bloomberg report, the former FTX lead engineer agreed to forfeit the luxury home after pleading guilty in a federal lawsuit last month to wire fraud, money laundering, campaign finance violations, and other fraudulent activities.
The 27-year-old software engineer purchased the property using his income, but authorities claimed the funds were directly linked to his numerous crimes in the case.
In addition to the forfeiture, he agreed to assist the prosecutors with their case against SBF to get a reduced sentence for his crimes.
His lawyer also said during the plea deal that Singh “wants to do everything he can to make it right for investors,” who still have their funds stuck on the exchange after it filed for bankruptcy.
Singh Faces Parallel Charges After Pleading Guilty
Shortly after the plea in February with the Department of Justice, Singh was slammed with additional lawsuits filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Attorney’s Office.
The complaints filed on the same day alleged that Singh committed securities fraud, aided and abetted SBF to commit fraud, and misappropriated customer funds.
The SEC said that Singh developed software code that provided a loophole for FTX to send customers’ funds to its trading house Alameda Research. Furthermore, the SEC claimed that the defendant illegally withdrew $6 million from the exchange for his personal gains.
CFTC, on the other hand, said the defendant did not contest its charges, noting that the suit followed the previous indictments against his partners, including SBF, FTX, and Alameda.
