Lawyers for former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao are asking a federal judge to allow the cryptocurrency trading platform’s founder to return to his home in the United Arab Emirates before he is sentenced in the United States after pleading guilty to money laundering earlier this week had pleaded guilty.
Zhao, who resigned from Binance as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with the Justice Department, faces up to 10 years in prison. A separate ruling by a judge gave Zhao permission to travel home, but Justice Department prosecutors are now asking U.S. District Judge Richard Jones to ban Zhao from leaving.
Lawyers representing Zhao, who has dual citizenship of Canada and the United Arab Emirates, filed a motion Thursday in the Western District of Washington in Seattle saying he is not a flight risk and that he appeared willingly in court to plead guilty to the charges.
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“The fact that Mr. Zhao and his family’s home is in the United Arab Emirates does not pose a flight risk to him, and it would be punitive to prevent him from returning there,” the lawsuit says. “His family has been growing recently as he and his partner welcomed their third child a few months ago. If Mr. Zhao is allowed to remain in the United Arab Emirates, he will in turn be able to take care of his family and prepare them for his return to the United States for sentencing.”
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jones is expected to rule on Zhao’s request by Monday.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has been under investigation by federal regulators and law enforcement agencies, including the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. As part of a settlement with the government, company officials admitted this week that they had failed to prevent money laundering on the platform and were operating illegally in the U.S., allowing traders in countries currently facing U.S. sanctions, such as Iran , was allowed to do business with Americans.
Federal investigators alleged that Binance, which processes billions of dollars in transactions, illegally profited by allowing “dark web” actors and ransomware hackers to operate on the platform and failed to conduct proper searches for other illegal services.
Zhao admitted to knowingly ignoring certain bad actor filtering processes on his platform and failing to file suspicious activity reports with regulators, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
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