The former executives of U.S. cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, money laundering trial has been scheduled for March 28, 2022
The former BitMEX executives CEO Arthur Hayes, co-founder Benjamin Delo, and chief technology officer Samuel Reed’s trial has been set down for trial by New York District Judge John Koeltl.
The executives of Bitmex were alleged to have violated the anti-money laundering laws and Bank Secrecy Act. Also, Gregory Dwyer, the head of business development of BitMex is facing charges but has not yet appeared in the case.
For illegally operating a derivatives exchange, The U.S. Department of Justice originally filed the criminal charges against the four executives on October 1, 2020.
IN 2014, Delo, Hayes and Reed established BitMex with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission which has also filed a civil enforcement action against the company.
According to the indictment, Hayes allegedly said in July 2019 that the Seychelles was a friendlier jurisdiction since it cost less to bribe authorities there than it would in the U.S. FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney claimed to the press that Hayes bragged about bribing regulators in that jurisdiction costing just “a coconut.”
According to John Jefferies, chief financial analyst at blockchain intelligence firm CipherTrace, BitMEX had been under CFTC investigation since early 2019 for allowing Americans to trade on the platform. Speaking to Cointelegraph, he added that they were given time to improve their Customer Identification Program to effectively exclude U.S. clients.