KuCoin and its two founders face charges from the Justice Department for contravening AML laws.

The United States Justice Department has revealed charges against cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and its founders for engaging in an unlicensed money transmitting business and violating the Bank Secrecy Act. According to the Department of Justice, KuCoin founders Chun Gan and Ke Tang intentionally neglected to establish an Anti-Money Laundering program at the exchange, leading to the platform being exploited for money laundering and terrorist financing. The company itself is accused of operating without a license for money transmission. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated that KuCoin and its founders purposely concealed the fact that a significant number of U.S. users were trading on their platform. The Department of Justice alleges that KuCoin took advantage of its large American customer base to become one of the largest cryptocurrency derivatives and spot exchanges globally, with billions of dollars in daily trades and trillions of dollars in annual trade volume. The charges from the Justice Department were announced alongside a civil enforcement case from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which also accused KuCoin of multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations. The Justice Department claims that KuCoin received over $5 billion and transferred more than $4 billion in suspicious and criminal funds. KuCoin founders Chun Gan and Ke Tang, who are Chinese nationals, have not been apprehended. Similar criminal charges have been filed by U.S. authorities against other cryptocurrency exchanges and their executives operating in the country. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is set to be sentenced on March 28 after being convicted on seven felony charges, while former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is expected to be sentenced on April 30. The United States enforcement agencies are intensifying their efforts to combat crypto-related crime.