A US district judge accepted the plea deals agreed upon by Binance, former CEO Changpeng Zhao and the Department of Justice.
Binance, which operates Binance.com, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, pleaded guilty and dismissed the Justice Department’s investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), failure to register as a money transmitter, and International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). agreed to pay over $4 billion to resolve the issue.
Changpeng Zhao, a Canadian citizen and founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Binance, was also convicted of failing to implement a comprehensive anti-money laundering (AML) program in violation of the BSA and resigned as Binance CEO.
According to court documents, Binance admitted that it prioritized growth and profits over compliance with US laws. Binance launched in 2017 and focused on attracting high volume customers, including US-based customers. Binance quickly became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, and most of its customers came from the USA.
As a result of serving U.S. customers, Binance was required to register with FinCEN as a money services business and implement an effective AML program reasonably designed to prevent Binance from being used to facilitate money laundering, according to the court documents.
*This is not investment advice.
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