- OKX sentenced a fine to $ 504 million for violating the American anti-flowage laws.
- The SEC has abandoned cases against Robinhood and Opensea, reporting emphasis on foreign entities that are not in accordance with national companies according to American rules.
Exchange of cryptocurrency based in Seychelles, OKX pleaded guilty of having violated the American anti-flowering laws (AML) and agreed to pay more than $ 504 million in penalties.
The regulations include $ 420.3 million in criminal confiscation and a criminal fine of $ 84.4 million after years of illegal operations targeting American customers without appropriate regulatory regulatory.
An illicit seven -year -old activity model
According to American lawyer Matthew Podolsky, OKX violations covered More than seven years, facilitating more than $ 5 billion in suspicious transactions linked to the criminal product.
He underlined the seriousness of the offenses, stressing that the company had knowingly violated the laws on LMA and did not implement guarantees designed to prevent criminal abuses of the financial system.
“Today’s advocacy and guilt sanctions point out that there will be consequences for financial institutions which are prevailing from the American markets but violates the law by allowing criminal activity to continue.”
The FBI also played a crucial role in the investigation.
Deputy Director James E. Dennehy highlighted the severity of OKX misconduct, declaring,
“For years, OKX has violated American law in a blatant way, actively seeking customers in the United States – including here in New York – and even to advise individuals to provide false information to bypass the required procedures.”
How Okx has circumvented American regulations
Despite an official policy prohibiting users based in the United States, OKX has secretly sought retail and institutional customers in the United States.
From 2018 at the start of 2024, American customers generated more than $ 1 billion in transactions via OKX, contributing hundreds of millions of negotiation costs.
The evidence presented to the court revealed that OKX employees advised American customers to get around regulatory checks. In one case from April 2023, an OKX employee told a potential American user,
“I know you are in the United States, but you can just put a random country and it should pass. Just put the name, nationality and identification number. You can simply put the United Arab Emirates and random numbers for the identification number. »»
Even after the implementation of a Know Your Customer (KYC) process, OKX would have continued to authorize transactions without checking identities, allowing users to bypass controls via VPN and “brokers without disclosure”.
OKX’s response and future compliance efforts
In an audience statementOKX’s parent company, at Cayes Fintech Co. Ltd., recognized the “inherited compliance shortcomings”, but stressed that the number of American users affected was a small fraction of its global customers.
The company said,
“There has been no allegation of customer damage, no accusation against an employee of the company and no instructor appointed by the government within the framework of the regulations.”
Regulation changes?
The case of OKX arrives in the middle of a wave of regulatory actions aimed at tightening control of cryptocurrency platforms.
A few days following the OKX regulation, two other high -level cryptographic surveys ended with clearly different results, which wonders if the American regulators are concentrated.
Robinhood Crypto announcement that the SEC had closed its investigation without any action in application. Dan Gallagher, Legal Director of Robinhood, praised the decision, declaring,
“We applaud the personnel decision to close this investigation without any action.”
In the same vein, the SEC also abandoned its investigation into Opensea, a major NFT market. The CEO of the platform, Devin Finzer, describe The closure as a victory for digital asset creators.
The time of these cases suggests a possible change in the regulatory strategy of the dry.
While Robinhood and Opensea appeared unscathed, the aggressive position against OKX could point out that the American authorities focus on foreign platforms that are not in accordance with a substantial American user base.
