US Prosecutors Look to Charge Binance and CZ on Possible Money Laundering Violations

If they've been investigated since 2018 for money laundering (18 U.S.C. §§ 1956 or 1957), I would be willing to bet my life that there's already a sealed grand jury indictment that will be unsealed at some point in the near future. That catalyst could be the auditor refusing to attest to their compliance to whatever regulatory requirements are for crypto exchanges these days.

No co-mingling of funds, KYC, AML controls to detect stacking/structuring, filling out the relevant CTRs (Currency Transaction Reports)/SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports), monitoring for account holders on the OECD list and no activity in banned countries are the ones that immediately come to mind.

The fact that they are going after them for money laundering tells me that the Feds didn't like someone in their system and want to use that account holder(s) as an excuse to take them down. Traditional banks process fraudulent funds for people all the time but they have clear processes to mitigate and limit it...and you don't see the DOJ or FinCEN having a shitfit about it. When you're an exchange provider and you get on the US Fed's list, you're gonna have a bad day.