BitMEX founders pay $20 million in fines after pleading guilty to violating Bank Secrecy Act.
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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo, co-founders of the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering (AML) program at BitMEX.” The co-founders of the exchange admitted to using their platform as a means of dodging U.S. money-laundering rules.
Hayes and Delo could face prison time.
While Hayes and Delo could face the possibility of a five-year sentence in prison, the Wall Street Journal reported that the deals the pair reached argue for sentences of six-to-12 months. The former CEO and the former CFO of BitMEX will also have the opportunity to seek a lesser sentence when they appear before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl at their sentencing hearing (date unspecified). In the meantime, each man has agreed to pay a $10 million penalty representing their “pecuniary gain derived from the offense.”
Other co-founders of BitMEX are yet to resolve their charges.
Other indicted co-founder of BitMEX and ex-CTO Sam Reed, along with its former head of operations Greg Dwyer, have yet to resolve their own charges. If they fail to reach a plea agreement, the pair are scheduled to go to trial later this year. All four accused additionally faced charges of conspiring to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, which also carries a potential maximum five-year prison sentence. As reported earlier, the crypto exchange previously reached a $100 million settlement with the U.S. CFTC and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network FinCEN. The site also faces a number of civil suits by aggrieved customers who accuse BitMEX of market manipulation against their own customers.
Cryptocurrency
