Prior to joining McDermott, Sagar was a federal prosecutor at the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), where he served most recently as chief of the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. In that leadership role, Sagar oversaw approximately 20 senior prosecutors responsible for investigating and prosecuting some of the most sophisticated fraud and cyber cases in the country, many of which were international in scope. He also supervised some of the first US criminal investigations involving AI.

As a prosecutor, Sagar led and supervised cases and cross-border investigations involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the False Claims Act (FCA), healthcare fraud, securities and investment fraud, intellectual property and trade secrets theft, tax offenses, sanctions, and money laundering and the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). During his time at SDNY, Sagar tried and supervised 23 federal criminal trials to verdict and handled 10 appeals before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In addition to the DOJ, through his extensive experience with joint and parallel investigations, Sagar has had regular engagement with multiple civil regulators, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, among others.

Recognized for his experience handling novel, high-profile criminal cyber and national security cyber cases, Sagar provides clients with strategic counsel during interactions with US and international law enforcement agencies and regulators in sensitive cyber matters. He counsels clients on handling complex cross-border cybersecurity and data breach incidents, ransomware attacks and cybersecurity issues related to AI. Sagar also advises clients on the full spectrum of digital asset matters, including cryptocurrency theft and investment fraud, the manipulation of smart contracts, fraud in non-fungible token (NFT) offerings and the use of cryptocurrency to launder crime proceeds.

Before he joined SDNY, Sagar clerked for the Honorable Kiyo A. Matsumoto of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He began his legal career at another international law firm representing corporate and individual clients in a variety of white-collar matters.

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• Supervised, in partnership with the DOJ Fraud Section, the charging of FTX founder Samuel Bankman-Fried for an FCPA violation involving a $40 million bribe to induce Chinese government officials to unfreeze $1 billion of restrained cryptocurrency*
• Obtained groundbreaking racketeering trial conviction of Scott Tucker, the leader of a $3.5 billion illegal payday lending enterprise, and his general counsel, for crimes that victimized 4.5 million Americans*
• Supervised the prosecution of executives of a student loan company for allegedly falsely inflating the number of its customers in order to fraudulently induce a multimillion-dollar acquisition by a leading financial institution*
• Supervised the prosecution of an international conspiracy led by Chinese businessman Ho Wan Kwok (Guo Wengui) for allegedly defrauding thousands of victims of more than $1 billion, resulting in racketeering, securities fraud, cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering charges*
• Prosecuted the principals of a nonprofit entity for alleged fraud, embezzlement and money laundering in connection with $800 million of New York City contracts for homeless services*
• Supervised the prosecution of the first criminal case involving the hack of a smart contract operated by a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange that resulted in a loss of $9 million in cryptocurrency*
• Prosecuted, in partnership with the DOJ National Security Division, two members of a Chinese hacking group which conducted global campaigns of cyber intrusions and acted in association with the Chinese government*
• Supervised, in partnership with the DOJ Fraud Section, the resolution of an FCPA case involving the multinational mining company Glencore, resulting in a parent-level corporate guilty plea and more than $1 billion in financial penalties*
• In partnership with the DOJ Tax Division, conducted a multijurisdictional tax investigation that resulted in a $875 million corporate resolution with Israel’s largest bank for assisting US taxpayers to conceal approximately $7.6 billion in assets*
• Supervised the prosecution of the leaders of OneCoin in connection with a multibillion-dollar international pyramid scheme involving the sale of a fraudulent cryptocurrency*
• Supervised the prosecution of more than 20 former professional athletes and several doctors for a multimillion-dollar healthcare fraud*
• Prosecuted the first criminal case against a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) lender for a fraudulent scheme to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in capital for PPP loans and earn millions of dollars in fees*
• Supervised the first prosecution of individuals for allegedly defrauding purchasers of NFTs through a “rug-pull” scheme*

*Matter handled prior to joining McDermott.

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Courts / Agencies
US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
US District Court for the Southern District of New York
US District Court for the Eastern District of New York

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