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 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 between 2018 and 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 of his sentencing has not been disclosed. In a similar case, Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, was convicted of the same offenses and sentenced to four months in prison in April.
Todd resigned from his position as CEO of Digitex in October 2022 and has since worked as the chief developer for Digitex Games since February 2023. In 2020, following a significant data breach at Digitex that exposed confidential user information, Todd announced the discontinuation of all KYC checks. This decision was made despite the platform previously claiming 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 have also faced civil litigation 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 ruling was issued against them, ordering them to pay $16 million in penalties and disgorgement for their failure to comply with U.S. laws.