Binance founder and former chief Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to violating U.S. law by failing to implement a program to prevent money laundering, arrives for his sentencing in federal district court in Seattle, Washington, U.S. April 30, 2024. REUTERS/Deborah Bloom
SEATTLE (Reuters) -Changpeng Zhao, the former chief executive of Binance, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison after pleading guilty to violating U.S. money-laundering laws at the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.
The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle, who rejected prosecutors' request that the 47-year-old Zhao serve a three-year term.
Once considered the most powerful person in the crypto industry, Zhao, known as "CZ," will be the second major crypto boss to be sentenced to prison.
(Writing by Michelle Price; reporting by Chris Prentice, Jonathan Stempel and Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Alistair Bell, Will Dunham, Deepa Babington and Leslie Adler)
