Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to violating US anti-money laundering laws. The sentence was imposed yesterday in Seattle by US District Judge Richard Jones.
Changpeng Zhao will spend four months in prison
The 47-year-old businessman was not immediately detained and left the room after the hearing ended. It is not yet known which federal detention center will serve the sentence.
As reported by Reuters, prosecutors had asked for three years in prison because they considered that the executive had created a model that benefited members of terrorist groups and other criminals who carried out transactions in cryptocurrency. Judge Jones, however, said the suggested sentence was inappropriate because it could not be proven that Zhao knew that the funds passing through the platform were linked to crimes.
This sentencing hearing is the final chapter of a long legal process that had as its epicenter the activity of the most used cryptocurrency exchange in the world. The court concluded that Zhao put Binance's growth ahead of complying with the regulations that financial institutions are subject to in the United States, and that the platform was used for a series of illicit activities.
Between 2018 and 2022, Binance will have processed at least 800 million dollars in transactions that violated US regulations. Some customers made impermissible businesses with residents of Iran. The platform was also used by Hamas, an organization declared terrorist by Washington, to raise money through Bitcoin. And there was no shortage of operations related to cybercrime, such as ransomware.
It is worth noting that the definition that became known yesterday complements the previous agreement that Zhao had made with the Court. The entrepreneur paid a fine of 50 million dollars and resigned as CEO of Binance. The platform, in turn, agreed to pay a fine of 4.3 billion dollars and bringing in independent oversight actors to ensure compliance with anti-money laundering regulations.
According to the AP, his destination could be a federal prison. This may be due to the fact not being a US citizen (born in China and emigrated to Canada at age 12) and being a high-level personality who cooperated with North American law enforcement.
If this finally happens, Zhao will become the richest person in history to be detained in a US federal detention center. Despite the ups and downs of the world of cryptocurrencies, the businessman boasts a fortune of around 36 billion dollars.
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