Former CEO of Digitex, Adam Todd, has admitted to violating anti-money laundering (AML) regulations in federal court. Todd pleaded guilty to the charge of not establishing an AML program as required by the Bank Secrecy Act.
This plea was entered in the federal court of the Southern District of Florida, as reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on May 7. Todd is accused of enabling Digitex to offer an unregistered futures trading platform to U.S. customers from 2018 to 2022 without implementing AML and Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has stated that Todd could face up to five years in prison or a fine of $250,000. However, no sentencing date has been announced yet.
In April, Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, was also found guilty of similar offences and was sentenced to four months in prison.
Adam Todd stepped down as CEO of Digitex in October 2022 and has been serving as the chief developer for Digitex Games since February 2023. In 2020, following a significant data breach at Digitex that exposed confidential user data, Todd announced the discontinuation of all KYC checks, despite earlier claims by the platform that U.S. IPs were blocked and users had to confirm they were not in the United States.
In addition to the criminal charges, Todd and Digitex were subject to civil litigation by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In 2022, the CFTC filed a lawsuit against Todd and Digitex, resulting in a court ruling in 2023 ordering them to pay $16 million in penalties and disgorgement for non-compliance with U.S. laws.
