{"id":12014,"date":"2024-03-26T19:23:48","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T17:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/us-accuses-kucoin-of-laundering-9-billion\/"},"modified":"2024-03-26T19:23:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T17:23:48","slug":"us-accuses-kucoin-of-laundering-9-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/us-accuses-kucoin-of-laundering-9-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"US Accuses KuCoin of Laundering $9 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US federal prosecutor charged<\/a> cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and its two founders with laundering $9 billion.<\/p>\n

Authorities allege that platform founders Chun (Michael) Gan and Ke (Eric) Tang failed to implement KYC<\/span>\/AML<\/span> procedures from 2017 to 2023, despite serving over 30 million clients. Subsequently, identification and verification did not apply to existing users.<\/p>\n

Thus, the exchange was effectively “used for laundering proceeds from suspicious and criminal activities, including sanctions violations, darknet markets, and ransomware schemes.”<\/p>\n

According to the indictment, from August 2022 to November 2023, 197 deposit addresses at KuCoin directly or indirectly received cryptocurrencies worth over $3.2 million from the sanctioned mixer Tornado Cash.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the exchange was not registered with the FinCEN<\/span> as a financial services company. At least one investor was misled about the absence of US clients at the exchange.<\/p>\n

The extensive client base in the US, according to the prosecutor, allowed KuCoin to become one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges “with billions of dollars in daily trading volume.”<\/p>\n

In addition to violating banking secrecy laws and anti-money laundering rules, the platform failed to file suspicious activity reports.<\/p>\n

A separate lawsuit against KuCoin was filed<\/a> by the CFTC<\/span>. It also accused the platform of non-compliance with KYC and lack of registration as a futures commission merchant, swap execution facility, or designated contract market.<\/p>\n

The CFTC seeks monetary penalties, trading bans, registration prohibitions, and an injunction, while the Department of Justice demands asset forfeiture alongside criminal penalties.<\/p>\n

In total, KuCoin and its founders are accused of receiving over $5 billion and sending more than $4 billion in suspicious and criminal funds.<\/p>\n

As of now, Gan and Tang have not been arrested.<\/p>\n

Following the news, KuCoin’s native token fell by 15%, according to CoinGecko<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In March 2023, the New York State Attorney General’s Office accused KuCoin of violating securities laws by offering digital assets without a license and providing brokerage services without registration.<\/p>\n

In December, as part of a pre-trial settlement, the platform agreed to pay over $22 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US federal prosecutor charged cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and its two founders with laundering $9 billion. Authorities allege that platform founders Chun (Michael) Gan and Ke (Eric) Tang failed to implement KYC\/AML procedures from 2017 to 2023, despite serving over 30 million clients. Subsequently, identification and verification did not apply to existing users. Thus, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1464,1292,1323,1411,1314,26],"class_list":["post-12014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-accusations","tag-aml-kyc","tag-investigations","tag-kucoin","tag-tornado-cash","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"77","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}