The Justice Department has asked a U.S. judge to prevent former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao from leaving the country until he has been found guilty of breaking anti-money laundering laws. Zhao’s attorneys are pleading with the judge to deny this request.
Zhao’s attorneys requested on Thursday that U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle uphold the bond terms that a magistrate judge had established on Tuesday, allowing Zhao to leave the country pending sentencing.
After admitting guilt to deliberately causing the international cryptocurrency exchange to deliberately neglect to operate an efficient anti-money laundering programme, Zhao, a citizen of both the United Arab Emirates and Canada, resigned as CEO of Binance on Tuesday.
Authorities in the United States said that Binance had violated anti-money laundering and sanctions laws in the country and had neglected to disclose over 100,000 suspicious transactions involving entities the government has designated as terrorists, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Hamas, and al Qaeda.
In exchange for a plea agreement, the business agreed to pay more than $4.3 billion. Zhao faces up to 18 months in prison, according to prosecutors in a complaint on Wednesday, but he has agreed to pay a $150 million penalty to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
After Zhao consented to be released on a $175 million bail bond, U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Tsuchida decided to allow Zhao to return home to the United Arab Emirates prior to his sentencing on February 23. The Justice Department has requested that Jones overturn this decision by Monday.
Since that the United States and the United Arab Emirates do not have an extradition treaty and Zhao is a multibillionaire with substantial wealth, the government warned that it might not be possible to get him back if he decides not to return for his sentencing.
Source (CNBC)
