Kucoin, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, He declared himself guilty of operating without a license in the United States and agreed to pay more than USD 297 million in fines and seizures, As announced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on January 27.
The Peken Global Limited company, based in Seychelles and Kucoin operator, admitted have raped US laws not implementing measures against money laundering (AML) and identity verification (KYC), as reported by cryptootics. This allowed billions of dollars in suspicious transactions to go through the un controlled platform.
Kucoin facilitated illegal operations
According to the DOJ, Kucoin became a channel to move funds from markets in the Darknet, malware, ransomware and fraud schemes. The federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon He stressed that The company did not register suspicious transactions or enrolled in the network of application of financial crimes (FINCEN)as required by the Bank Secret Law.
“Kucoin avoided implementing AML policies designed to identify criminal actors and prevent illicit transactions,” said Sassoon.
On the other hand, one of the founders of Kucoin, Michael Gan, declared in an official post of the Exchange that the agreement was resolved “favorably” between both parties.
In addition, he mentioned that all charges against him and co -founder Ric Tang had been removed after “meet certain conditions”, Among them, that the legal director of Ku Coin, BC Wong, was the new CEO of the Exchange. This was reaffirmed Wong in Your X account.
Departure from the US market and millionaire sanctions
As part of the agreement, Kucoin will leave the US market for at least two years. In addition, its founders Chun Gan and Ke Tang, accused in March 2024, will leave their positions in the company.
The sanctions imposed include:
- USD 184.5 million confirms.
- USD 112.9 million in fines.
- USD 2.7 million to be renounced by the founders.
Despite the measures implemented in 2023 to reinforce its KYC program, the DOJ considered that Kucoin did not do enough to comply with US regulationsallowing unidentified users to continue operating.
With this statement of guilt, Kucoin joins the list of exchanges who have been pursued by the regulators of the United States, in a context of greater surveillance on the cryptocurrency industry.
