Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, pleads guilty to money laundering charges

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, resigned after entering a guilty plea to charges of money laundering.

“I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility. This is best for our community, for Binance, and for myself,” he said in a post on X.

As announced by the Justice Department, $4.3 billion (£3.4 billion) in fines and forfeitures must be paid by Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange globally.

It claimed that Binance has assisted consumers in eluding international penalties.

“Millions of dollars’ worth of transactions between US users and users in Syria and the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk were made possible by Binance, enabling nearly $900 million in transactions between US users and Iranian users,” a spokeswoman stated.

Known as the largest marketplace in the world for buying and selling cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, Binance is a Cayman Islands-registered company.

The Justice Department alleged that the exchange had facilitated money transfers for terrorists and criminals.

There were direct transfers of over $106 million in Bitcoin from Hydra to Binance.com accounts between August 2017 and April 2022. Hydra was a well-known Russian darknet marketplace that criminals often used to facilitate the sale of illicit items and services, according to the department.

Binance is now required to notify federal authorities of any suspicious conduct.

“This will further our criminal investigations into terrorist financing and malicious cyber activities, including the use of Bitcoin exchanges to promote organizations like Hamas,” the Justice Department stated.

The new CEO of the company is Richard Teng, who formerly oversaw regional markets.

Changpeng Zhao stated that it was “not easy to let go emotionally” in a post on X.

He is among the leading lights in the cryptocurrency world.