BitMEX exchange has pleaded guilty to violating AML regulations in the United States

What’s new? Crypto exchange BitMEX has pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by knowingly failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (KYC/AML) program. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams specified that the violations occurred between 2015 and 2020 and were relevant to the exchange’s operations in the United States.

Statement of the prosecutor’s office

What else is known? BitMEX faced charges back in the fall of 2020, after which founder Arthur Hayes, now known for his crypto market analytics and involvement in funding other crypto projects, left his post as CEO.

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Co-founders Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed and the platform’s first employee Greg Dwyer, who later became head of business development, were also charged.

In February 2022, Hayes and Delo admitted to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act, and the exchange paid a $100 million fine to settle the claims. In March, Reed joined them, while Dwyer refused to plead guilty.

In May of that year, Hayes received six months of house arrest and two years of probation, Case was sentenced to 30 months probation and a $10 million fine.

According to new reports, the company itself has now pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act. According to the prosecutor’s office, the platform has long operated in the United States without registering with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and an AML program.

In a new statement, Attorney Williams notes that “BitMEX opened itself up as a vehicle for large-scale money laundering and sanctions evasion schemes, posing a serious threat to the integrity of the financial system.” He also added that the willful refusal to comply with US law allowed the platform to generate additional profits.

“Today’s guilty plea indicates again the need for cryptocurrency companies to comply with U.S. law if they take advantage of the US market,” the prosecutor concluded.

Earlier, Changpeng Zhao, founder of the largest crypto exchange Binance, was given 4 months in jail in the US on similar charges. As part of the agreement with the authorities, he left the post of CEO, and the company paid fines of $4,3 billion. During the proceedings, Hayes stated that “the treatment of CZ and Binance is absurd, and only highlights the arbitrary nature of punishment at the hands of the state.”

BitMEX, founded in 2014, is one of the leading centralized exchange (CEX) platforms for trading cryptocurrency derivatives. Its daily trading volume exceeds $400 million, according to the CoinGecko aggregator.