The US government charged cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin and its two founders, Chun Gan and Ke Tang, with criminal acts on Tuesday, March 26.
Chun Gan and Ke Tang are accused of failing to execute anti-money laundering processes and allowing illegal monies worth more than $5 billion to pass through their trading platform.
Chun Gan and Ke Tang are facing fines for money transmission and Bank Secrecy Act violations, with a “multibillion-dollar criminal conspiracy” highlighted specifically.
This was stated in a news release issued by the United States Southern District of New York, which identified them for their involvement in the suspected illegal behaviour.
Damian Willians, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Darren McCormack, the head of Homeland Security Investigations’ New York Field Office, announced the indictment.
The unsealed document stated that the exchange “flouted US anti-money laundering laws to grow KuCoin into one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges”.
Attorney Williams claimed that the exchange “deliberately sought to conceal” the number of US users on its site.
The document also alleged that KuCoin “took advantage of the sizeable US customer base to become one of the world’s largest exchanges, describing the development as a “criminal conspiracy”.
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