The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has reportedly granted pardons to three of the co-founders of the cryptocurrency platform BitMEX, who had admitted guilt to serious charges.
As per a CNBC report dated March 28, Trump authorized pardons for Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed, who were confronting various legal accusations pertaining to money laundering and breaches of the Bank Secrecy Act. In February 2022, Hayes and Delo pleaded guilty, acknowledging they “willfully fail[ed] to establish, implement and maintain an Anti-Money Laundering program” at BitMEX, whereas Reed submitted his plea shortly afterward.
At the point of publication, the White House had not issued any statement indicating that Trump intended to pardon the three individuals. Cointelegraph reached out to BitMEX for commentary concerning the pardon, but no response was received at the time of publication.
Since assuming office on January 20, Trump has granted several contentious federal pardons, which includes over 1,500 individuals facing allegations linked to the January 6, 2021, uprising at the US Capitol, as well as Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, who had been incarcerated for over 11 years. Reports indicate that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, sentenced to 25 years in prison for misappropriating customer funds, was also seeking to connect with Trump and Republicans for a potential clemency.
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US officials accused Delo, Reed, Hayes, and Gregory Dwyer — the exchange’s original employee — in 2020 for breaching the Bank Secrecy Act. Hayes, who was the then-CEO of BitMEX, resigned from his position amid the legal proceedings.
The rationale behind Trump’s pardon remained ambiguous at the time of publication, given that the three individuals had already received sentences involving either home confinement or probation in 2022. The co-founders of BitMEX were also mandated to pay $30 million in fines as part of a civil lawsuit lodged by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The exchange’s legal entanglements with US authorities included a prior agreement to disburse $100 million in settlements to both the CFTC and the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in 2021. In January, a judge levied a $100 million penalty and mandated two years of unsupervised probation on HDR Global Trading Limited, the parent company of BitMEX.
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This story is still unfolding, and additional details will be updated as they emerge.
