Adam Todd, the former CEO of Digitex, has pleaded guilty to the charge of not establishing an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program, as required by the Bank Secrecy Act. The plea was made in the federal court of the Southern District of Florida, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on May 7. Todd is accused of allowing 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, the date for his sentencing has not yet been revealed. In April, Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, was also found guilty of the same offenses and was sentenced to four months in prison.
Todd resigned from his position as CEO of Digitex in October 2022 and has since been working as the chief developer for Digitex Games since February 2023. In 2020, after a significant data breach at Digitex exposed confidential user data, Todd announced the discontinuation of all KYC checks. This decision was made despite the platform’s previous claims that U.S. IPs were blocked and users had to confirm that they were not located in the United States.
In addition to the criminal charges, Todd and Digitex faced a civil lawsuit from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In 2022, the CFTC filed a lawsuit against Todd and Digitex, and in 2023, a court ruled against them, ordering them to pay $16 million in penalties and disgorgement for failing to comply with U.S. laws.
