BitMEX Pleads Guilty to BSA Violations Over Five-Year Period

• Crypto exchange BitMEX has pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) from 2015 to 2020.
• BitMEX called the latest charge old news, saying it relates to actions pre-Sep 2020, but they accepted the BSA violation.

BitMEX, a leading cryptocurrency exchange based in the Seychelles, has pleaded guilty to breaching the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) between 2015 and 2020, as announced by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday.

Court documents reveal that BitMEX intentionally failed to implement a know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) framework during this period. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accused the exchange in September 2020 of providing illicit crypto derivative trading services to U.S. customers. Concurrently, the DOJ charged four BitMEX employees with BSA violations.

The DOJ asserted that BitMEX permitted customers to trade cryptocurrencies anonymously until September 2020 without requiring any form of identification. The exchange marketed itself as a platform where users could trade without real-name verification, which, according to prosecutors, facilitated money laundering and sanctions violations.

Legal Fallout and BitMEX Response

This plea is the latest in a series of legal challenges faced by BitMEX. In 2021, the exchange agreed to pay $100 million to settle with U.S. regulators over related issues. 

In 2022, three of its founders pleaded guilty to U.S. charges, each paying a $10 million fine. Furthermore, the company’s former head of business development, Greg Dwyer, received a 12-month probation sentence for BSA violations, while founder Arthur Hayes was sentenced to six months of home detention for similar offenses.

BitMEX responded to the latest charge by describing it as “old news,” emphasizing that it pertains to actions prior to September 2020 and reiterating their acceptance of the BSA charge on social media platform X.

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