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The U.S. Department of Justice has charged crypto exchange KuCoin and its two founders with breaching the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and not adhering to anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. Additionally, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has accused the exchange of operating without a license.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has initiated criminal proceedings against KuCoin and its founders, Chun Gan and Ke Tang, on multiple counts of breaching local regulations.
In particular, the DOJ has charged KuCoin and its founders with:
- conspiracy to engage in unlawful funds transfer activities;
- conspiracy to contravene the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA);
- failure to adhere to anti-money laundering regulations;
- conspiracy to run an unlicensed money transmitting operation.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams indicated that the founders of KuCoin intentionally attempted to hide the fact that numerous local users were trading on the platform. He also noted that the cryptocurrency exchange did not take steps to identify or prevent criminal activities and illicit financing schemes on its platform, thereby violating fundamental AML regulations. Prosecutors have flagged over $5 billion in received funds and approximately $4 billion sent through the exchange as suspicious and linked to illegal activities.
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Alongside the charges from the U.S. DOJ, KuCoin is also facing a separate legal action initiated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which has accused a group of companies associated with KuCoin of various infractions of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). The CFTC has charged the cryptocurrency exchange with:
- illegally conducting off-exchange commodity futures transactions;
- engaging in retail commodity transactions without registering with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant (FCM);
- insufficient oversight of transactions on the platform;
- failure to register with the CFTC as a swap execution facility (SEF) or designated contract market (DCM) operator;
- failure to establish an effective customer identification program (CIP).
Representatives from the crypto exchange assert that all user funds are completely secure, and the company’s legal team is working towards resolving the cases. Following the announcement of the charges, the value of KuCoin’s native token began to decline significantly. Data from CoinGecko indicates that KCS has decreased by over 14% in the past 24 hours.
The crypto community appears to be split regarding the allegations against KuCoin. Some users have begun to question the legality of the exchange’s operations, anticipating a significant withdrawal of funds from KuCoin’s accounts in the near future. Conversely, other members of the crypto community express skepticism towards the accusations from U.S. regulators, suggesting that the U.S. authorities are repeating familiar tactics that do not warrant concern.
Criminal cases involving crypto exchanges and their founders are not unusual in the United States. Kraken, Coinbase, and Binance are among those that have faced similar accusations.
Сообщение 2 Criminal Cases Opened Against KuCoin in U.S. появились сначала на CoinsPaid Media.
