BitMEX co-founder sentenced to 30 months probation

Benjamin Delo escaped imprisonment on charges of violating the US Bank Secrecy Act.

16.06.2022 - 13:05

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What’s new? On June 15, Benjamin Delo, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, was sentenced to 30 months of probation without house arrest for violating the US anti-money-laundering law (AML). His attorney, Patrick Smith, argued that Delo was involved in a “criminal compliance failure,” but BitMEX was not purposefully designed to circumvent the law. Delo, who was sentenced in federal court in New York, managed to avoid imprisonment, the WSJ reported.

Information on The Wall Street Journal website

How did events develop? Delo also paid a $10 million fine as part of a deal with prosecutors and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). A few days after the verdict goes into effect, Delo will be allowed to return to his home in Hong Kong, where he had lived before he was detained. The prosecution wanted to sentence Delo to prison, but acknowledged that would be unfair given that another BitMEX co-founder, Arthur Hayes, formerly a public face of the exchange, was sentenced to house arrest.

In 2020, Delo, two other co-founders of the exchange, Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed, as well as platform employee Gregory Dwyer, were charged with knowingly violating the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires the creation of protective measures such as the identification of exchange customers in the United States.

Hayes went on trial in April 2021 but was released on $10 million bail. In February 2022, Hayes and Delo pleaded guilty to willfully failing to implement an anti-money laundering program. Reed pleaded guilty in March. Dwyer pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to stand trial in October.

In late May, Arthur Hayes was sentenced to six months of house arrest and two years of probation.

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