John Reed Stark, former head of the Office of Internet Enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), drew a comparison between Changpeng Zhao's (CZ) compliance violations during his tenure as CEO of crypto exchange Binance and "mass murder." This characterization was disputed by Allan Endresz, founder of digital peer-to-peer currency Zucoins, who highlighted that numerous traditional banking executives have committed similar violations yet faced less severe consequences.
Endresz challenged Stark's assertion stating, "You are simply delusional when you state that: 'CZ’s crimes are not regulatory parking tickets but are tantamount to mass murder and mayhem.' I guess that ridiculous analogy means that the US Banks have committed 'genocide' when compared to the criminal violations they have committed on US and global citizens for well over 50 years without a single banking officer being sentenced to jail."
In a post on X discussing whether CZ might be compelled to remain in the United States ahead of his February 2024 sentencing, Stark said, “CZ’s crimes are not regulatory parking tickets but are tantamount to mass murder and mayhem, and his wealth and special ‘granted’ citizenship in a non-extraditing country like the UAE render CZ a legitimate flight risk.”
According to data from Good Jobs First's "violation tracker," Bank of America has been penalized more than $87 billion since 2000 for offenses including "toxic securities abuses" and "consumer protection violation." These penalties were imposed by federal departments and agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the SEC.
A July report from Enzuzo highlighted that multiple major banks have been fined by U.S. authorities for failing to maintain anti-money laundering (AML) protections or enabling sanctions evasions. In 2019, Standard Chartered Bank was fined $1.1 billion by U.S. and UK authorities for processing transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars for sanctioned countries like Syria and Iran. In 2012, HSBC Holdings was fined $1.9 billion for knowingly facilitating Mexican drug cartels' laundering of $881 million. In 2020, JP Morgan Chase was fined $920 million after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said the bank had been engaging in market manipulation for eight years.
On November 21, Binance reached a settlement with the DOJ, agreeing to pay $4.3 billion in penalties to resolve historical compliance issues, according to a press release. As part of this resolution, CZ agreed to step down from his role as CEO and pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective AML program.
In a post about the settlement, Binance stressed that the DOJ has not accused it of misusing any customer funds or engaging in market manipulation. The company acknowledged that while it has made significant investments in compliance and security, it did not have adequate compliance controls in place in the past. "Binance grew at an extremely fast pace globally, in a new and evolving industry that was in the early stages of regulation, and Binance made misguided decisions along the way," the post read. "Today, Binance takes responsibility for this past chapter."
Endresz is recognized as the founder of Zucoins, which is the native token on the SplitChain network, according to its website. Prior to establishing Zucoins, Endresz spent over three decades working within finance and technology industries.