(Bloomberg) -- US prosecutors justified one of the largest criminal penalties in US history, saying Binance Holdings Ltd. willfully violated the nation's economic sanctions laws and left the financial system vulnerable to “those who seek to exploit our system for their own gain.”
The crypto trading company pleaded guilty late last year to anti-money laundering and sanctions violations and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties. In a sentencing memo filed Friday in federal court in Seattle, US prosecutors urged a federal judge to accept the plea deal.
“In sum, given the nature and seriousness of Binance's misconduct — it was intentional and led by senior executives, with hundreds of millions of dollars of collateral consequences,” the penalties in the proposed plea agreement are appropriate, they wrote.
The plea deal also requires monitoring of the company for up to five years.
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Prosecutors say that Binance's refusal to register as a so-called money services business, one that transmits or converts money, and its failure to implement an effective anti-money laundering program left “Binance, its customers, and the US financial system vulnerable to those who seek to exploit our system for their own gain.”
Binance has admitted that it allowed transactions with Hamas and other terrorist groups on the platform.
Binance's former Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering and is due to be sentenced in April. He faces as many as 10 years in prison but is expected to get no more than 18 months under a plea deal.
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