Cryptocurrency exchange Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao has been sentenced to four months in prison. Zhao has been found guilty of violating US anti-money laundering laws. US District Court Judge Richard Jones has pronounced this sentence.
The court has also imposed a fine of $ 4.32 billion (about Rs 36,068 crore) on the cryptocurrency exchange. Whereas, Zhao has paid a penalty of $ 50 million (about Rs 417 crore) as well as a penalty of $ 50 million to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The opposition lawyer told the court that Binance adopted a 'Wild West' model that benefits criminals. Through this model, one lakh suspicious transactions of major terrorist organizations including Hamas, Al-Qaeda and Islamic State were not reported. He further said, Zhao's exchange supported the trade of child sexual abuse material and kept a large part of the ransomware income generated from it.
Before being sentenced, Zhao told the judge, 'I am sorry. I believe the first step to taking responsibility is to fully recognize the mistakes. Here I failed to implement the Anti-Money Laundering Act, I have realized the seriousness of that mistake.'
Changpeng Zhao is known as CZ in the crypto market. Zhao is the richest person to go to jail in the US and possibly around the world. According to Bloomberg, Zhao's net worth is around $ 43 billion (Rs 3.59 lakh crore).
In November last year, US Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a fine of $4.3 billion (about Rs 35 thousand crores) on the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, saying, 'Binance became the world's largest crypto exchange because of its crimes.
He said that it will now pay one of the largest corporate penalties in US history.' After this, Zhao had to resign from his own company. Also, he was barred from holding any management position in the company for the next 3 years.
Binance was started in 2017. Binance's ecosystem includes many crypto exchanges, which it has acquired and built. Apart from this, it also has its own cryptocurrency, several crypto wallets and a launchpad to launch new cryptocurrencies.
