The United States Justice Department has revealed an indictment against cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and its two founders for participating in an unlicensed money transmitting business and violating the Bank Secrecy Act. The Department of Justice stated that KuCoin founders Chun Gan and Ke Tang intentionally neglected to establish an Anti-Money Laundering program at the exchange, resulting in the platform being used for money laundering and terrorist financing. Additionally, the company itself was charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and violating the BSA.
According to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, KuCoin and its founders purposely concealed the fact that a significant number of U.S. users were trading on the platform. He further stated that KuCoin took advantage of its substantial U.S. customer base to become one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency derivatives and spot exchanges, facilitating billions of dollars of daily trades and trillions of dollars of annual trade volume.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also filed a civil enforcement case against KuCoin on the same day, accusing the exchange of multiple violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations. The Justice Department revealed that KuCoin had received over $5 billion and had sent more than $4 billion of suspicious and criminal funds.
Chun Gan and Ke Tang, who helped launch KuCoin in 2017, are Chinese nationals and are currently evading authorities. This follows a trend of U.S. officials pursuing criminal charges against cryptocurrency exchanges and their executives operating in the country. Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, is set to be sentenced on March 28 after being convicted on seven felony charges, while the former CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, is expected to be sentenced on April 30.
The enforcement agencies in the United States are intensifying their efforts to combat crypto-related crimes.