By Abiola Olawale
A United States (US) district court has ordered the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Changpeng Zhao, to surrender all his passports to a third party and keep authorities updated on his travel plans.
This was contained in a legal filing issued on Tuesday, showing that the district court has changed the bail conditions for the Binance cryptocurrency exchange founder.
Also, the presiding judge, Richard Jones ordered Zhao to remain in the US and notify court authorities of any travel arrangements. He added that Zhao should transfer all his travel documents to a person his lawyers will hire, who will accompany the former head of Binance on all trips where a passport may be needed.
In addition, Zhao can only issue new documents with the court’s permission. He is also obliged to notify the relevant services of his movements.
The New Diplomat reports that the conditions placed on Zhao are part of court-enforced demands that a defendant on pretrial release must follow until his case is resolved under law.
In June 2023, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Zhao. The lawsuit alleges that Binance failed to restrict U.S. customers from its platform, misled investors about its market surveillance controls, and operated an unregistered securities exchange.
In November 2023, Binance settled with the U.S. Government, agreeing to pay over $4 billion to resolve the Justice Department’s investigation into violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The settlement also includes the Treasury Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The sentencing date in the Zhao case has been postponed to April 30. It was originally scheduled for March but was delayed for unknown reasons.
The entrepreneur may face up to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws in the U.S. According to former U.S. SEC employee John Reed Stark, representatives of the Ministry of Justice will insist on a more severe punishment.
The New Diplomat also reports that this saga is coming amidst allegations from Nigerian authorities that Binance is devaluing the country’s official currency, the naira, and enabling illicit flow of funds. Nigerian authorities prompted Telecom providers to block access to Binance and other crypto exchanges.
Since the issue, Tigran Gambaryan, Binance’s head of investigations, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British lawyer and Kenya-based manager for the crypto exchange for Africa, have been arrested and still been detained by the Nigerian government.
