Becca Balint Contributor Admits Fraud
Becca Balint, a member of the US House of Representatives from the state of Vermont, has been thrown into the spotlight again after Nishad Singh, an ex-executive of insolvent cryptocurrency exchange FTX who contributed $1 million in advertising money to her congressional push, pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud on 28 February.
Singh said he is sorry for his role in the bankrupt crypto firm. He reiterated that he only knew by mid-2022 that Alameda Research, the hedge fund run by founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), was borrowing customer funds at FTX without informing depositors.
The association of the politician with FTX has added more fuel to the fire as allies of SBF, which included Singh, contributed a minimum of $26,000 directly to support her campaign. Aside from that, the Democratic Party in Vermont was also a beneficiary of FTX contributions.
SBF's inner circle continues to crumble. Singh is the third member of the once-thriving crypto firm to collaborate with US prosecutors with the hope of working out a deal.
The latest link to Bankman-Fried's ally comes a few days after a superseding indictment filed on 23 February laid out an alleged scheme by the founder and former CEO to illegally move investor money to political campaigns to help improve his standing with representatives in Washington, DC.
Prosecutors believe his consistent donations were a way of pushing decision-makers to consider his preferred regulatory agenda for the entire decentralized finance economy.
Becca Balint is cooperating with authorities
According to her campaign manager, Natalie Silver, Vermont's leader in the House of Representatives is fully cooperating with federal authorities in the investigation into SBF's scheme to pour a minimum of $1 million into a super PAC (political action committee) to support a candidate who favoured LGBTQ issues.
After serving as a member of the Vermont Senate, Balint made history by becoming the first person from the LGBTQ+ community to be elected to Congress.
Author: Raphael Minter
Raphael Minter/ Albert Zuhnden (preferred pen name) is a crypto finance writer, data miner, and fundamental analyst. Raphael has written hundreds of articles about centralized and decentralized financial instruments such as precious metals, commodities, stocks, and cryptocurrencies. He broke into digital finance in 2016 and believes digital assets and blockchain technology is the future of finance.