Binance's CZ Sentenced to Four Months in Prison

Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao Sentenced to Four Months in Prison

Billionaire Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, was sentenced Tuesday to four months in prison, a lighter punishment than requested by prosecutors who hoped to send a message about crime in the industry.

“You had a responsibility to comply with United States regulations. Not some but all,” U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones said. “You failed at that opportunity.”

Zhao, 47, pleaded guilty in November to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements. He agreed to step down as Binance’s chief executive. Zhao remains Binance’s majority shareholder.

How ‘Good Guy’ Reputation Secured Binance’s CZ a 4-Month Prison Sentence

The judge, CZ’s defense lawyers and even prosecutors acknowledged during the 2 1/2 hour sentencing hearing that this 47-year-old billionaire was not your run-of-the-mill criminal defendant. Instead, he was a philanthropist, a do-gooder, a first-time lawbreaker and family man who turned himself in to accept whatever may come.

This unexpected resuscitation of the crypto kingpin’s reputation factored into his fate: a tremendously light sentence of four months, far less than the three years prosecutors sought to punish – in their telling – this historically egregious violation of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

Judge Richard Jones, 74, had none of it. “To be honest with you, sir, everything I see about your history and characteristics are of a mitigating nature,” he said to Zhao near the start of his sentencing. He recalled going through a book of glowing sentencing letters that CZ’s friends and family had submitted.

SEC Charges Former CEO of Dallas Area Cybersecurity Company with Fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed a complaint against Jack B. Blount, the former CEO of Intrusion Inc. (“Intrusion”), for making false and misleading statements in 2020 and 2021 regarding the company’s purported success in marketing a cybersecurity product, the terms of multiple contracts, and Blount’s background and experience. Blount has agreed to settle the SEC’s charges. The settlement with Blount follows the SEC’s settled action against Intrusion in September 2023.

The SEC’s complaint alleges that from May 2020 through May 2021, Blount made or approved materially false and misleading statements in press releases, earnings calls, interviews, and other public statements. As alleged in the complaint, Blount overstated the company’s success in marketing Intrusion Shield, a cybersecurity product, by falsely representing that most or nearly all beta-testing participants had converted to paying customers, when in fact less than half of such participants became paying customers. In addition, the SEC alleges that Blount and Intrusion misled investors about three customer relationships by omitting material information about the economic terms of one contract, prematurely claiming that a second contract had been executed, and falsely claiming that a third customer had signed a contract when it had not. Finally, the complaint alleges that Blount made misleading statements about his qualifications, experience, and accomplishments.

The FCA’s Name-and-Shame Plan Is Mad, Bad and Dangerous to the City

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, the principal financial services watchdog, has got itself in a spot of bother over proposals to “name and shame” financial services firms at the beginning, rather than the conclusion, of any investigation. It needs to rapidly revise its thinking, or risk damaging the City’s standing even further.

The regulator has succeeded in uniting opposition from the entire financial sector, with at least 16 industry bodies, including UK Finance and the City of London Corporation, asserting their view in a letter to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt that the suggestion breaches principles of basic fairness. If the FCA doesn’t backtrack, he needs to intervene — otherwise the UK will move out of step with other global regulators by holding UK firms to overly stringent oversight. It could leave efforts to revive the City in tatters.

Bill Hwang Fights Prison Time After Hastening Credit Suisse Collapse

“Money Failed!” the slide flashed.

Those words from the Bible, in Genesis 47, don’t even begin to capture the wild arc the enigmatic financier has traced, or what is about to happen next.

In near total secrecy, Hwang amassed a fortune that briefly eclipsed $36 billion, only to see it wiped out very publicly. In the end, the Archegos flameout inflicted billions of dollars in losses at banks that did business with him—even hastening the death of Credit Suisse.

On May 8, the man born Sung Kook Hwang is due to appear at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan in what promises to be one of the most closely watched Wall Street trials in recent memory.

The Justice Department has accused the son of a Korean pastor of lying to some of the world’s most powerful banks as they plied him with financing to make wagers that sent stocks soaring and crashing. Raising the stakes, federal prosecutors are even invoking racketeering laws famously used to take down mob bosses. These could put Hwang away for 20 years. He has pleaded not guilty.