⁍ U.S. prosecutors on Thursday filed criminal charges accusing four founders of the BitMEX cryptocurrency derivatives exchange of failing to take sufficient steps to stop money laundering.
⁍ The U.S. Department of Justice charged Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed, who together founded BitMEX in 2014, and Gregory Dwyer, its first employee and later head of business development.
⁍ Reed has been arrested in Massachusetts, while the other defendants are at large, the Justice Department said.
– Four founders and former executives of BitMEX, a virtual-currency exchange, have been charged with violating the Bank Secrecy Act and conspiring to violate that law, Reuters reports. According to court papers, the defendants knew that BitMEX was supposed to have an anti-money-laundering program that included a “know your customer” requirement. But prosecutors say the defendants instead took “affirmative steps” to evade those requirements, including incorporating BitMEX and affiliates in the Seychelles, which they believed had less stringent regulations. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a separate civil lawsuit seeking to halt BitMEX’s commodity derivatives business in the US.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-bitmex/us-charges-bitmex-cryptocurrency-executives-with-violating-bank-secrecy-act-idUSKBN26M6SE