the former richest man in china is released from prison!
2024-09-30
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on friday local time, zhao changpeng was released two days before the official release date (september 29) (if the release date falls on a weekend, the prisoner will be released early).
in april this year, changpeng zhao was sentenced to four months in prison by a seattle federal court for alleged money laundering at his cryptocurrency exchange. u.s. district judge richard jones said to changpeng zhao: "you had the ability, financial resources and manpower to ensure compliance with every regulation, but you missed this opportunity." zhao changpeng's lawyer had asked for a five-month suspended sentence, but in the end, he didn't escape jail.
changpeng zhao was born in lianyungang, jiangsu province and is a chinese-canadian entrepreneur. in 2017, changpeng zhao founded binance and quickly became a global cryptocurrency exchange, providing a trading platform for more than 150 cryptocurrencies. at the end of 2021, against the backdrop of the surge in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, changpeng zhao became the richest chinese man with a net worth of us$94.1 billion (approximately 634.8 billion yuan). according to forbes rankings, as of april 2024, zhao changpeng still has a wealth of more than 30 billion us dollars.
according to previous reports by the securities times, changpeng zhao and binance have pleaded guilty since november 2023 and were formally imprisoned in april 2024.
in april 2024, the u.s. district judge in seattle sentenced changpeng zhao to four months in prison for failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering framework, causing binance to become a viable platform for cybercrime and terrorist activities. the sentence was far less than the three years in prison recommended by prosecutors, but it was still not the outcome zhao changpeng's defense lawyers expected, and they appealed for probation.
as early as november 2023, the u.s. justice department stated that binance, which operates the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange binance.com, admitted to participating in suspected money laundering, unlicensed remittances and sanctions violations, and agreed to pay a fine of approximately us$4.3 billion. ; at the same time, changpeng zhao admitted that he failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and resigned as ceo of binance.
as part of the plea agreement, binance agreed to forfeit $2.51 billion and pay a criminal fine of $1.81 billion, for a total forfeiture of $4.32 billion. binance also agreed to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years to correct and strengthen its anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance program.
after accepting the penalty from the u.s. department of justice, the u.s. commodity futures trading commission (cftc) announced a $2.85 billion penalty against binance and changpeng zhao in december 2023. including the us$4.32 billion settlement amount from the us department of justice, binance and changpeng zhao have paid a total of us$7.17 billion.
in addition, the u.s. securities and exchange commission (sec) is still investigating binance for illegal activities. in june 2023, the sec filed 13 charges against binance entities and founder changpeng zhao, including operating an illegal trading platform in the united states; operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers and clearing agencies; abusing customer funds; registered securities offerings and sales, etc.
in response to the sec’s accusations, binance responded that the company actively cooperated with the sec’s investigation and worked hard to respond to questions and address the concerns of regulatory agencies in the hope of reaching negotiations and resolving their investigation issues. judging from the continuous huge fines from the u.s. department of justice to the cftc, binance is very likely to receive fines from the sec.
