Adam Todd, the founder and ex-CEO of the Digitex Futures Exchange, has admitted guilt in federal court for failing to establish an Anti-Money Laundering program at the company.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida stated on May 7 that Todd pleaded guilty to intentionally causing Digitex to violate the Bank Secrecy Act. Todd was indicted by authorities in February. The indictment revealed that between 2018 and 2022, Todd operated an unregistered futures platform for customers in the United States, without implementing and maintaining AML and Know Your Customer (KYC) programs.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Todd could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. In a separate federal district, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to similar charges in November 2023. Zhao was subsequently sentenced to four months in prison in April, although the date for him to report to prison has not been set.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has not yet announced a date for Todd’s sentencing hearing. According to his LinkedIn profile, Todd resigned as the CEO of the exchange in October 2022 and has been working as the lead developer at Digitex Games since February 2023.
In related news, Todd made an announcement in 2020 that there would be no requirements for KYC identity verification following a data breach at Digitex. It was reported that a former employee of the exchange had stolen information from numerous users’ passports and driver’s licenses.
At the time, Digitex claimed to be blocking access from U.S. IP addresses and requested users to confirm that they were not based in the United States. In 2022, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Todd and Digitex, and the following year, the CFTC won the case, resulting in an order for $16 million in disgorgement and penalties.
US enforcement agencies are increasing their efforts to combat cryptocurrency-related crimes.