Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (趙長鵬) was ordered to spend four months in prison for failures that allowed cybercriminals and terrorist groups to freely trade on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Zhao, 47, was sentenced on Tuesday by US District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle, Washington. The billionaire’s mother and sister watched his sentencing from the front row of the courtroom.
The sentence was far below the three years requested by prosecutors, who had sought to make an example out of Zhao to a heavily scrutinized industry rebounding from a slew of high-profile scandals. It is the first time a chief executive officer has ever gone to jail for a bank secrecy act violation in the US, a charge that has been used repeatedly in crypto prosecutions in the past few years.
Photo: Bloomberg
In imposing the sentence, Jones said he hoped Zhao understood that, despite “wealth, power and status,” no person is immune from prosecution or above the law.
Zhao, who did not visibly react to the sentence, is expected to serve his four-month stint at Seattle’s Federal Detention Center, SeaTac. A date for Zhao to turn himself in to prison authorities has not been decided, although he has expressed eagerness to get back to his family in the United Arab Emirates.
In a post on X after the sentencing, Zhao said: “I will do my time, conclude this phase and focus on the next chapter of my life (education).”
He added that he “will remain a passive investor (and holder) in crypto.”
Zhao pleaded guilty in November last year for failing to implement an adequate money laundering program at Binance, an exchange that began in Shanghai in 2017 and ballooned to process trillions of dollars worth of trades each year. At the same time, Binance pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering and sanctions law violations, and agreed to pay US$4.3 billion to resolve investigations with the US department and other regulators.
US federal prosecutor Kevin Mosley said the Binance founder’s violations of US law were intentional, not an oversight.
“This wasn’t a mistake,” Mosley said. “It wasn’t a regulatory ‘oops.’”
The failure to maintain an adequate money laundering program opened the door to illicit actors, including crypto mixers, hackers and terrorist groups including al-Qaeda and Islamic State, to trade Bitcoin on the platform, Mosley said.
In an example detailed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, used Bitcoin transactions to raise money for the Palestinian resistance.
Hamas, which has been designated by the US as a terrorist organization, murdered more than 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7 last year.
Despite Zhao’s well-publicized criminal case, he has held onto his personal fortune. His wealth ballooned by US$25 billion as the crypto industry recovered last year and he is currently ranked as the 42nd richest person worldwide, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS