The operator of the OKX cryptocurrency exchange pleaded guilty on Monday to violating US anti-money-laundering laws and will pay nearly US$505 million in fines and forfeited fees, the US Department of Justice said.
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Aux Cayes FinTech, a Seychelles-based entity, admitted to one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. It entered its plea at a hearing before US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan, who imposed the sentence.
OKX is the world’s fourth-ranked cryptocurrency spot exchange based on traffic, liquidity, trading volumes, and confidence in the legitimacy of reported trading volumes, according to CoinMarketCap. Binance, Bybit and Coinbase rank higher.
Prosecutors said that from 2018 through early 2024, OKX contravened its own policy against letting people in the United States use its platform, and was used to facilitate more than US$5 billion of suspicious transactions and criminal proceeds.
OKX let US customers conduct more than US$1 trillion of transactions overall, generating hundreds of millions of dollars of fees and profits, and sometimes encouraged customers to skirt the train ban, prosecutors said.
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One employee allegedly told a customer to say it was based in the United Arab Emirates and to use random numbers for identification purposes.