The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has levied a civil money penalty of $100 million on the convertible virtual currency derivatives exchange BitMEX for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and other regulations.
BitMEX deliberately did not comply with BSA requirements from 2014 to 2020. It failed to implement an effective AML program and a customer identification program. It also did not report some specific suspicious activities. In fact, it failed to file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) for as many as 588 suspicious transactions. BitMEX conducted over $209 million worth of cryptocurrency transactions with darknet markets or unregistered mixing service providers. The firm also allowed business with high-risk jurisdictions.
In addition to the $100m penalty, BitMEX will have to hire an independent consultant to conduct a historical analysis of its transaction data to see if additional SARs need to be filed.