A federal judge in the United States (US) approved Binance’s plea deal, ordering the cryptocurrency exchange to pay more than $4.3 billion in fines and reparations.
Richard Jones, a US district judge, approved the plea agreement during a sentencing hearing in Seattle on Friday.
The development comes after the company and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty late last year to violating anti-money laundering laws and sanctions, putting an end to a lengthy investigation by US prosecutors and regulators.
Binance admitted to allowing transactions with Hamas and other terrorist organisations on its exchange.
On Friday, the US district judge approved a plea agreement between Binance and federal prosecutors, ordering the company to pay a $1.8 billion fine and forfeiture of $2.5 billion.
He said:
“This is a case where the ethics of the company were compromised by greed.”
Meanwhile, the government stated in its sentencing memorandum that Binance “profited from the US financial system without playing by its rules, and, as a result, criminals used the exchange to move hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen funds and illicit proceeds”.
As part of the plea agreement, Zhao relinquished his position as CEO of Binance and agreed to pay a $50 million fine. His sentencing has been postponed until April.
Binance, which handles cryptocurrency exchanges, has suffered significant losses since the crypto markets crashed and officials began looking into the legality of its operations.
In June 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Nigeria declared Binance Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Binance, to be operating illegally.
According to reports, the federal government has halted operations of cryptocurrency platforms such as Binance.
Bayo Onanuga, President Bola Tinubu’s special adviser for information and strategy, confirmed the restriction in a post on X on February 24, 2024.
On February 21, Onanuga claimed that cryptocurrency platforms help to manipulate the foreign exchange (FX) market.
However, Binance Nigeria stated that its market-driven peer-to-peer (P2P) platform is not intended to serve as a proxy for Nigerian currency pricing.
Binance also stated that Nigerian users can still access its platform.
Source: TheCable