Final BitMEX Co-Founder Pleads Guilty to U.S. Violations

2 years ago

The 3rd laminitis of cryptocurrency speech BitMEX pled blameworthy successful a national tribunal connected Wednesday to violating U.S. anti-money laundering (AML) rules, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Samuel Reed pled blameworthy to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain” an anti-money laundering programme astatine BitMEX.

Under the plea agreement, Reed volition wage a $10 cardinal fine. The complaint besides carries a maximum condemnation of 5 years successful prison. Reed’s condemnation volition beryllium decided by a national judge.

“As today’s blameworthy plea reflects, this Office volition not licence cryptocurrency exchanges to run arsenic a shadiness fiscal strategy that enables transgression actors to determination their illicit proceeds without detection, and volition vigorously analyse and prosecute the operators of specified exchanges who deliberately flout U.S. law,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams successful a statement.

The DOJ and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) each brought national charges against BitMEX and its founders successful Oct. 2020, with the CFTC settling its lawsuit past year.

BitMEX was accused of mounting up offshore operations to evade U.S. AML regulations portion inactive allowing U.S. customers to transact connected the platform.

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