US Seeks More Than $4B from Binance to End Criminal Case

[rich_sasha]

I know this is how the US operates, still it's weird to trade cash for criminal allegations. Especially when Binance has been so vilified.

I'm not defending Binance, rather, it feels like the SEC rhetoric went past the point where a fine is appropriate.

Unless they are only proposing it so they can't be accused of not giving them the same treatment that everyone else gets.

[pavlov]

It seems like the deal would be more like probation where Binance would remain monitored after paying the fine:

"If Binance and the DOJ agree on a deferred-prosecution-agreement, the Justice Department would file a criminal complaint against the company. The US would not go forward with a prosecution as long as the company meets prescribed conditions, which usually include paying a substantial penalty and agreeing to a detailed statement of facts outlining its wrongdoing. A process would be set up to monitor the company’s compliance."

Also there might be personal criminal charges against CZ:

"Negotiations between the Justice Department and Binance include the possibility that its founder Changpeng Zhao would face criminal charges in the US under an agreement to resolve the probe into alleged money laundering, bank fraud and sanctions violations, according to people familiar with the discussions.

"Zhao, also known as “CZ,” is residing in the United Arab Emirates, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US, but that doesn’t prevent him from coming voluntarily."

LOL at the "coming voluntarily" part though...

[TacticalCoder]

> I know this is how the US operates, still it's weird to trade cash for criminal allegations.

It's not just the US. Spain is accusing Shakira of financial fraud (spending more than 183 days over a year from 2012 to 2014 in Spain --for she had a spanish lover--, without paying her taxes in Spain) and she had to pay something like 16 millions plus six months in jail but they recently settled on an additional 8 millions or something and no jail time.

I mean: it's not exactly the same but they still traded cash for part of the sentence.

P.S: Spain is also apparently now going after her for year 2018.

[advisedwang]

Lets say this goes to trial and Binance is convicted. What will the sentence be? A fine. Allowing them to pay now without the trial basically is like a plea deal (or pleading guilty for a reduced sentence). Presumably this is less than the DoJ thinks the fine+court costs would be if they went to trial.

[dragonwriter]

> I know this is how the US operates, still it's weird to trade cash for criminal allegations.

I would imagine that the US is not unique in either (1) making corporations liable for crime, or (2) having the principal sanction against the corporation itself for any crime be either monetary or a combination of monetary sanction and injunction or similar behavioral controls.

[robocat]

Feels like extortion.

The Mafia's bigger brother.

[bilbo0s]

I'd be much more concerned about what this offer indicates regarding the new goodies that the shadow side of the US government has leveraged out of Binance.

In the long run, I'd wager the US government will be getting information and services worth a good deal more than USD4Billion out of Binance and ancillary organizations.

Still, if you can make as much money as Binance has allegedly been making, and sure, sell out a few of your customers, but now you can keep all that money free and clear legally? That's a pretty good trade assuming you're not some privacy nut or anything.

As a bonus, the shadow side of the US government will probably be pretty keen on protecting you from any of your less savory customers. Just so they can keep the whole thing rolling as long as possible.

This could be a good outcome for Binance.

[costco]

Wow, I was expecting about half that. I think this would be the second largest DPA ever. BNP Paribas paid $9 billion, Airbus paid $3.9 billion, Wells Fargo $3 billion, ...

I wonder if the SEC/CFTC stuff will be resolved too. That's the deal BitMEX got but this case is way more substantial than just not registering as a money transmitter.

[dmix]

Maybe it's an opening bid that could be negotiated down to 50%. Half kidding.

[CrzyLngPwd]

So, in the USA, you can do wrongs and then buy your way out of it, such that doing wrong and the resulting fines are just a cost of doing business however you see fit?

[yieldcrv]

Yes, Robert Smith cured his issue by simply reversing the tax deduction for charitable contributions

Just find something that can be rationalized as value and the US will play along

If you cant: straight to jail, stay there till the trial or take a horrible plea deal that ensures your incarceration but for theoretically less time than losing at trial

[Yizahi]

After a certain threshold, financial crime is rebranded as "lobbying" and is rewarded instead of punished.

[JumpCrisscross]

> you can do wrongs and then buy your way out of it

Did you miss the part where they're still wanting to criminally charge Zhao?

[0xDEADFED5]

I don't know why you're being downvoted, because the answer is mostly yes.

[matheusmoreira]

If you're rich enough you can even buy laws via "lobbying". Some politician voted in by the people tries to regulate you? Send in the lobbyists to introduce some "reasonable exceptions" into the law text.

Hell if you're rich enough you get to enforce US laws in foreign nations. Reading the US trade office reports is seriously disgusting to me. "Stakeholders" this, "stakeholders" that.

[shrimp_emoji]

Sounds like freedom to me :D

[rich_sasha]

https://archive.is/PPs7i/again?url=https://www.bloomberg.com...

[gmerc]

Everything continues to be legal for a fee’- and then we wonder the types of people we get

[ecommerceguy]

4 billion and continue being an inflation sink (dollar destruction) and the deal with the US gov lets the scam continue.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the deal with the US gov lets the scam continue

Outside America. Which, like, seems fine.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Why would they even negotiate with the United States? It's like if I ran an online business from the US who happened to have customers in Indonesia and I was breaking Indonesian laws. As long as I never planned on going to Indonesia, why would I care?

Fun fact: many years ago I did run an online business and I did break laws in other countries that I never plan to go to. I never broke US law.

[acdha]

How many countries and financial institutions will do business with someone the US government has put on a watchlist? Now consider that block chains are designed to make it easy for governments to control so even if I’m some guy in Nigeria my calculations for any transaction have to include a discount rate for the reduced number of people who will accept a transaction linked back to a sanctioned organization. Imagine how different the 1920s would have been if every bank, hotel, restaurant, etc. in Miami knew that the dollars you were paying came from a Cuban casino and were subject to criminal charges.

[tw04]

You think he's safe living in Canada if he's found guilty for massive fraud in the US? Or you think China, who has also been cracking down on finance in their own country, is going to protect this nobody whose platform actively works against their financial controls?

[toomuchtodo]

You may want to transit the airspace of the US or one of their allies in the future.

[simonebrunozzi]

USD is their biggest market.

[purpleblue]

Ahhh, so I guess this really was just a shakedown after all, like some banana republic despot. Color me stupid for thinking that the US cared about law and order and not about making money through the justice system.

[monero-xmr]

$80 billion in profit and a $4 billion fine! American justice at its finest.

[gruez]

Did they really make $80 billion from the alleged wrongdoings? Or is that just their total profit?

[chollida1]

Can you explain how you came to that number?