The first employee of BitMEX pleaded guilty on Monday to a charge of violating US bank secrecy laws by failing to establish an anti-money laundering program, following a guilty plea to the same charge by the three co-founders of BitMEX.
Gregory Dwyer, 39, of Australia and Bermuda, entered a plea before US District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan. He agreed to pay $150,000 in fines.
From 2015 to 2020, Dwyer and BitMEX founders Benjamin Delo, Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed were found to have a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to adopt anti-money laundering and know your customer programs, making the exchange a money-laundering platform.
Dwyer was the head of business development at BitMEX, short for the Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange.
He could face up to five years in prison, though Delo, Hayes and Reed were each sentenced to probation.
A lawyer for Dwyer didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
BitMEX agreed last August to pay up to $100 million to settle a civil lawsuit by two US financial regulators that it failed to properly screen customers and accept customer funds to trade cryptocurrencies without being registered.