Kucoin has pleaded guilty to a position to operate a money transmission business without a license and has agreed to pay fines of $ 297 million, the United States prosecutor for the South District of New York said on Tuesday in a statement.
“Kucoin avoided the implementation of required policies against money laundering designed to identify criminal actors and prevent illicit transactions,” said the Fiscal Prosecutor of the United States, Danielle R. Sassoon, in a statement.
“Kucoin was used to facilitate suspicious transactions of billions of dollars and to transmit potentially criminal income, including the income of Darknet markets and malware, ransomware and fraud schemes,” the statement added.
As part of the guilt declaration, Kucoin agreed to leave the US market for at least two years and two of the founders of the exchange, Chun “Michael” Gan and Ke “Eric” Tang, will also depart from the company.
Kucoin served approximately 1.5 million registered users who were located in the US.
The statement indicates that Kucoin employees openly promoted that the exchange did not have a knowledge program (KYC). It was only in August 2023 that Kucoin adopted a KYC process, but was not implemented in existing clients.
Gan and Tang, the founders of the exchange, agreed to lose approximately $ 2.7 million in funds that were generated as a result of Kucoin’s operations in the United States.
In a press release from Kucoin, Gan said he was renouncing the exchange to guarantee his continuous success and that he had no intention of violating any American or international rights.
KCS, Kucoin’s exchange token has increased by 10% by day, according to Coingcko data, however, the Token is negotiated in front.
