Adam Todd, the founder and former CEO of the Digitex Futures Exchange, has admitted his guilt in federal court for failing to establish an Anti-Money Laundering program at the company.
According to an announcement made by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida on May 7, Todd pleaded guilty to intentionally causing Digitex to violate the Bank Secrecy Act. He was indicted by authorities in February. The indictment states that between 2018 and 2022, Todd operated an unregistered futures platform for U.S. customers without implementing and maintaining proper AML and Know Your Customer (KYC) programs.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that Todd could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. It’s worth noting that former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who was charged with similar offenses, pleaded guilty in a different federal district in November 2023 and was subsequently sentenced to four months in prison. However, the date for Zhao’s reporting to prison has not yet been determined.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has not yet announced a date for Todd’s sentencing hearing. According to his LinkedIn profile, he resigned as the CEO of the exchange in October 2022 and has been working as the lead developer at Digitex Games since February 2023.
In 2020, Todd declared that there would be no KYC identity verification requirements following a data breach at Digitex. It was reported that a former employee of the exchange had stolen personal information, including passports and driver’s licenses, from numerous users. At the time, Digitex claimed to be blocking U.S. IP addresses and requesting users to confirm that they were not based in the United States. In 2022, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Todd and Digitex, ultimately winning the case the following year and obtaining an order for $16 million in disgorgement and penalties.
The increase in crackdowns on cryptocurrency-related crimes by U.S. enforcement agencies is evident.