Trump has pardoned Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed, wiping out their federal convictions tied to operating BitMEX without any real anti-money-laundering compliance, according to CNBC.
All three had already pleaded guilty and were sentenced, but on Thursday, the White House confirmed the full pardons, just over three months after the exchange itself was fined $100 million for violating U.S. law.
Arthur, the former CEO of BitMEX, had been sentenced to six months of home confinement followed by two years of probation. Benjamin, who served as chief operating officer and strategy officer, got 30 months of probation. Samuel, who was BitMEX’s chief technology officer, was handed 18 months of probation. Together, the three were fined $30 million in civil penalties.
Prosecutors said the men operated BitMEX like a money laundering platform, and allowed U.S. users to continue trading on the exchange even after announcing BitMEX would stop serving them. That announcement, according to federal authorities, was “a sham.” The platform lacked any functioning KYC or AML system and completely ignored the Bank Secrecy Act, which mandates customer identity checks and suspicious activity monitoring.
The trio had entered guilty pleas in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, admitting that they failed to establish or maintain proper controls. The court accepted the plea deals, which let them avoid prison time. Despite the non-custodial sentences, the Justice Department said their actions enabled years of unchecked financial activity that could have supported criminal transactions.
Trump grants additional pardons to Milton and Ulbricht
The BitMEX pardons were part of a larger set of actions taken by Trump this week. On Thursday night, Trevor Milton, the founder and former CEO of electric truck startup Nikola, confirmed that Trump also pardoned him. Trevor had been convicted of securities fraud and sentenced to four years in prison for misleading investors about Nikola’s tech. He hadn’t entered prison yet, as he was still appealing the case.
Trump had pardoned a crypto figure before. On January 22, he announced that he had signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, the man who built Silk Road, a dark web marketplace that used Bitcoin for illegal drug sales and other underground goods. Trump actually called Ross’s mother personally to give her the news.
Ross had been convicted in 2015 in New York on conspiracy charges related to narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and hacking. He was sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years, with no parole. Prosecutors said Silk Road handled more than $200 million in illegal transactions before being shut down in 2013.
They also said Ross tried to hire people to kill six others, including a former employee of the site. No murders were ever carried out, but the government brought it up in court to show the extent of his criminal plans.
Trump responded to critics of the pardon by posting on Truth Social. “The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponisation of government against me,” he wrote. “He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”
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