BitMEX Crypto Exchange Pleads Guilty to New Charge of Money Laundering

According to a report on Aug 8th, for inadequately establishing anti-money laundering plan and violated U.S. bank secrecy laws, the first employer with BitMex pleaded guilty on Monday, previously, the cryptocurrency exchange’s three co-founders also pleaded guilty due to the same charge.

Gregory Dwyer, 39, confessed his crime before U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan and agreed to pay a fine of $150,000.

As prosecutor said from 2015 to 2020, Dwyer and BitMEX (short for Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange) founders Benjamin Delo, Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed violated federal bank secrecy laws on purpose, by failing to adopt anti-money laundering and “know your customer” programs, essentially transforming the exchange into a money laundering platform.

Dwyer, who worked as a business development president at BitMEX, would face up to five years in prison, although Delo, Hayes and Reed were each sentenced to probation. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BitMEX paid up to $100 million last August to settle civil charges brought by two U.S. financial regulators. Because it did not screen customers properly and accepted customer funds for cryptocurrency transactions without registration.