Kucoin pleaded guilty to a charge of operating a company transmission company without license and agreed to pay penalties of more than $ 297 million, said the office of the United States prosecutor on Tuesday For the South New York district.
“Kucoin has avoided the implementation of anti-flowage policies required to identify criminal actors and prevent illicit transactions,” the American prosecutor Danielle R. Sassoon said in a statement.
“Kucoin was used to facilitate billions of dollars in suspicious transactions and to transmit potentially criminal products, including the product of the Darknet markets and malware, ransomware and fraud patterns,” added the press release.
As part of the guilt, Kucoin agreed to leave the American market for at least two years and two of the founders of the exchange, Chun “Michael” Gan and Ke “Eric” Tang, will also leave the company.
Kucoin has served around 1.5 million registered users who were located in the United States and won at least around $ 184.5 million in fees from these users registered in the United States, the statement said.
The press release notes that Kucoin employees openly promoted that the exchange had no Know-Your-Customer (KYC) program. It was not until August 2023 that Kucoin adopted a KYC process, but it was not implemented on existing customers.
Gan and Tang, the founders of the exchange, agreed to lose around $ 2.7 million in funds generated following Kucoin operations in the United States
In a Kucoin press release, Gan said he was withdrawing from the exchange to ensure his continuous success and that he had no intention of raping any American or international right.
KCS, the Kucoin exchange token, is up 10% today, according to Coingecko data, but the token is barely exchanged.
