Billionaire Changpeng Zhao of crypto exchange Binance threatens to end up in prison | News

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Zhao pleaded guilty in November, ending a lengthy investigation into Binance. This investigation revealed that the cryptocurrency exchange failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions involving organizations such as Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Zhao has already agreed to pay a $50 million fine.

Binance must pay a fine of more than 4.3 billion dollars, equivalent to more than 4 billion euros. Federal prosecutors and the company previously reached an agreement on this. As part of that deal, Binance must also be audited for compliance with the rules by an independent office for five years.

Since Changpeng Zhao (47) founded the crypto exchange Binance in 2017, billions have flowed in smoothly. In Bloomberg’s billionaires list, he currently ranks 29th with a fortune of almost $42.6 billion, or 39.8 billion euros. This means that the billionaire’s wealth has almost halved compared to two years ago. Then he climbed that list to just outside the top ten.

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