Changpeng Zhao and his crypto exchange were fined over $4 billion after a 2023 guilty plea to money laundering violations
US President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who was previously convicted of enabling money laundering at the crypto exchange, the White House has announced.
Binance and then-CEO Zhao pleaded guilty in November 2023 to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act, admitting they failed to enforce anti-money-laundering rules. Prosecutors said the exchange failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions, including those tied to terrorism and child exploitation. Binance was banned from operating in the US and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines, while Zhao resigned as CEO and paid $50 million. He was later sentenced to four months in prison.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority” by pardoning Zhao, claiming he had been “egregiously oversentenced” by the administration of former President Joe Biden “in their war on cryptocurrency.”
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