FTX was under US prosecutors radar before collapse

• The Attorney’s Office of the South­ern Dis­trict of New York was inves­ti­gat­ing FTX months before its collapse
• The inves­ti­ga­tion was relat­ed to Unit­ed States Bank Secre­cy Act

The most infa­mous cryp­to exchange in the mar­ket cur­rent­ly – FTX – has hit the spot­light again. This time around, the exchange has made head­lines for its rela­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States reg­u­la­tors. Accord­ing to the lat­est reports by Bloomberg, the exchange was under the US pros­e­cu­tors radar long before it even collapsed.

Notably, the inves­ti­ga­tion was led by the US Attorney’s Office for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York, with Dami­an Williams head­ing the case. The report stat­ed that the office has been inves­ti­gat­ing cryp­to exchanges that have a pres­ence in the US and out­side. And, one among these exchanges was FTX.

In par­tic­u­lar, the agency was look­ing into whether or not these exchanges were com­ply­ing with the Bank Secre­cy Act aka Cur­ren­cy and For­eign Trans­ac­tions Act. The act man­dates finan­cial insti­tu­tions to have prop­er records of finan­cial trans­ac­tions exceed­ing the dai­ly lim­it of $10,000. The aim of the law is to pre­vent mon­ey laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ism financ­ing. The law has been pre­vi­ous­ly lever­aged against cryp­to exchanges claim­ing to have no US customers.

The sto­ry is still developing.