BitMEX’s Samuel Reed, one of the exchange’s co-founders, plead guilty to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act as we can see more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.
BitMEX’s Samuel Reed was one of the founders of the exchange alongside Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo who recently pleaded guilty to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act. He pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act which means that he will face up to five years in prison. US Attorney Damian Williams stated:
“Samuel Reed has now joined his co-founders, Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo, in admitting that they caused BitMEX to commit criminal violations of the anti-money laundering laws that govern financial institutions operating in the United States.”
The news came a few weeks after Hayes and Delo also pleaded guilty to the Bank Secrecy Act violations. Williams noted:
“As today’s guilty plea reflects, this Office will not permit cryptocurrency exchanges to operate as a shadow financial system that enables criminal actors to move their illicit proceeds without detection, and will vigorously investigate and prosecute the operators of such exchanges who deliberately flout U.S. law.”
Today’s news builds on the February press release published by the DOJ which said that both Delo and Hayes failed to establish and to maintain an anti-money laundering program at BitMEX. As per the DOJ Press Release, the court filings, and statements made in court point out that Reed was one of the three co-founders during the time when BitMEX had a US-based operation. This occurred “notwithstanding false representation to the contrary by the company.” The press release continued:
“Reed willfully caused BitMEX to fail to establish and maintain an AML program, including a program for verifying the identity of BitMEX’s customers.”
This resulted in BitMEX becoming in effect a money-laundering platform and the DOJ outlined that back in 2018, Reed was notified of allegations that the exchange was being used to launder proceedings of a crypto-hack but neither Reed nor BitMEX filed a suspicious activity report after. Reed also knew that BitMEX’s purported withdrawal from the US market in September 2015 was a sham as the DOJ added.
Also, The United States Department of Justice revealed that the founders of the BitMEX crypto exchange Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo pled guilty today of violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
