 Good afternoon. I'm joined today by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and CFTC Chairman Russ Benham. We are here today to announce that the Justice Department has secured felony guilty pleas from the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, and from its founder and CEO, Chang Peng Zhao, also known as CZ. Separate from the criminal enforcement actions, the Justice Department is announcing today. Secretary Yellen and Chairman Benham will also announce civil regulatory enforcement actions, and the Treasury Department and the CFTC are taking against Binance. While criminal and civil enforcement actions are subject to different legal standards, this collective effort represents the whole of government approach that we are taking to combat corporate crime. Binance has agreed to plead guilty to willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act, knowingly failing to register as a money transmitting business, and willfully violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. These laws ensure that our financial institutions are not available to designated terrorist organizations, drug traffickers, and sanctioned nation states that threaten public safety and our national security. The Justice Department is requiring Binance to pay $4.3 billion in penalties and forfeitures. This is one of the largest penalties we have ever obtained from a corporate defendant in a criminal matter. The Justice Department is also imposing a monitor ship as well as reporting requirements on Binance as part of today's resolution. Moving forward, Binance must file the suspicious activity reports that were required by law. The company is required to review past transactions and report suspicious activity to federal authorities. This will advance our criminal investigations into malicious cyber activity and terrorism fundraising, including the use of cryptocurrency exchanges to support groups such as Hamas. While this historic plea is an important measure of accountability, we know that corporations only act through the individuals who run them. That is why we have also filed a felony charge against and secured a guilty plea from Changpeng Zhao for willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act. As CEO of Binance, Zhao willfully violated federal law that requires financial institutions to guard against money laundering and terrorist financing. Zhao, who resides outside of the United States, entered his plea in person in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington earlier today. In August 2017, Zhao founded Binance as a platform where users could trade in cryptocurrency. But from the very beginning, Zhao and other Binance executives engaged in a deliberate and calculated effort to profit from the U.S. market without implementing the controls that are required by U.S. law. Zhao and Binance attracted and built a substantial U.S. customer base. Almost two years after Binance's founding, Zhao told senior management that the U.S. market represented 20 to 30 percent of the company's potential revenue. Serving these U.S. customers meant that Binance was a U.S. financial institution. U.S. financial institutions must comply with U.S. law. Zhao and other senior management at Binance understood this. They understood that the company was required by U.S. law to register with the Treasury Department as a money services business, and they understood that they were required by U.S. law to implement an effective anti-money laundering program. They failed to do either. Instead, they concluded that complying with U.S. law would stifle their efforts to grow Binance's profits, market share, and trading volume. So rather than comply, Binance facilitated billions of dollars of unregulated cryptocurrency transactions. It willfully enabled hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions between American users and users subject to U.S. sanctions, and its platform accommodated criminals across the world who use Binance to move their stolen funds and other criminal proceeds. Binance prioritized its profits over the safety of the American people. In part, because of the crimes it committed, Binance became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. Now, Binance is paying one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history. Binance employees knew and discussed that the company was serving thousands of users in sanctioned countries, and they knew that facilitating transactions between U.S. users and users in sanctioned countries would be in violation of U.S. law. But they did it anyway. Binance enabled nearly $900 million in transactions between U.S. and Iranian users. And it facilitated millions of dollars in transactions between U.S. users and users in Syria and in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. Binance's own compliance personnel also knew that the company's anti-money laundering procedures were inadequate and would attract criminals to the platform. In a February 2019 chat, one compliance employee wrote that they needed a banner that said, quote, is washing drug money too hard these days? Come to Binance. We got cake for you. By failing to comply with U.S. law, Binance made it easy for criminals to move their stolen funds and elicit proceeds on its exchanges. For example, between August 2017 and April 2022, there were direct transfers of approximately $106 million in Bitcoin to Binance.com wallets from Hydra. Hydra was a popular Russian dark net marketplace frequently utilized by criminals that facilitated the sale of illegal goods and services. Binance only stopped processing hydro transactions in April of 2022 when the Justice Department and our criminal law enforcement partners seized control of the Hydra marketplace and shut it down. From February 2018 to May 2019, Binance processed more than $275 million in deposits and $273 million in withdrawals from Best Mixer. Best Mixer was one of the largest cryptocurrency anonymizing services in the world before it was shut down for money laundering. Binance also did more than just fail to comply with federal law. It pretended to comply. In June 2019, Binance publicly announced that it would block U.S. users from Binance.com and launch a separate U.S. exchange. That exchange, Binance.us, would register with the Treasury Department and serve the U.S. market. Binance blocked some U.S. users on Binance.com and redirected them to the U.S. exchange. At the same time, however, Binance continued to allow some of its most important high-volume U.S. users to remain on the unregistered Binance.com exchange. At the direction of Zhao and other senior leaders at Binance, employees encouraged their high-volume U.S. users to conceal their U.S. connections, including by creating new accounts that obscured their locations. As Zhao himself said in a September 2019 chat quote, if we block U.S. users from day one, Binance will not be as big as we are today. We would also not have had any U.S. revenue we had for the last two years. He then added, quote, better to ask for forgiveness than permission, close quote. Over a year after Binance publicly announced that it was blocking U.S. users, an internal monthly company report attributed 16 percent of its total registered user base to the United States. That was more than any other country on the unregulated Binance.com platform. In the next monthly report, Binance removed the United States label and recategorized U.S. users with the label UNKWN, short for unknown. In October 2020, users labeled as UNKWN represented approximately 17 percent of Binance's registered user base. Binance and Zhao profited significantly from their violations of federal law that they are facing accountability for their crimes is due to the extraordinary hard work of the extraordinary public servants at the Department of Justice. I want to thank the criminal division's money laundering and asset recovery section, the national security division's counterintelligence and export control section, and the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington for their excellent work. I also want to thank Secretary Yellen and her team at the Treasury Department, including IRS criminal investigation, as well as CFTC Chairman Benham and his team for their extraordinary partnership in this matter. In just the past month, the Justice Department has successfully prosecuted the CEOs of two of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges in two separate criminal cases. The message here should be clear. Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disruptor, it makes you a criminal. This Justice Department has no tolerance for crimes that threaten our economic institutions and undermine public trust in the fairness of those institutions, and we will hold accountable the individuals who commit and profit from them. I'm now pleased to turn the podium over to Secretary Yellen. Good afternoon. I'm very glad to join Attorney General Garland, Deputy Attorney General Monaco, and CFTC Chairman Benham on such an important occasion. We're here today to announce the Treasury Department's historic action, the largest enforcement action in Treasury's history against Binance, the world's largest virtual currency exchange for its consistent and egregious violations of U.S. anti-money laundering and sanctions law. Protecting the U.S. financial system and through that, the global financial system is core to the Treasury Department's mission. And ever since Binance launched its convertible virtual currency platform, it has knowingly evaded the U.S. laws designed to protect these systems. Over more than three years, FinCEN, OFAC, and IRS criminal investigation thoroughly investigated key aspects of Binance's activities. Our work revealed that Binance claimed to have exited the U.S. market years ago, but actually did not, retaining U.S. users and other significant ties with the United States. It also had critical gaps in its anti-money laundering program and practices, from a lack of risk-based procedures for various offerings to instructing staff to withhold information from law enforcement. It deliberately undermined its own sanctions, monitoring controls, and it failed to report suspicious transactions. This meant Binance was allowing illicit actors to transact freely, supporting activities from child sexual abuse to illegal narcotics to terrorism across more than a hundred thousand transactions. That includes transactions associated with terrorist groups like Hamas's Al-Qasam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS. Binance processed these transactions, but it never filed a single suspicious activity report, and it also allowed over one and a half million virtual currency trades that violated U.S. sanctions. So we have taken the largest enforcement action in Treasury's history. FinCEN settlement agreement assesses a penalty of $3.4 billion. OFAC settlement agreement assesses a penalty of nearly a billion dollars. Binance is also required to report the suspicious transactions. It has failed to report to date and to establish an effective anti-money laundering program to support the global AMLCFT regime, and the settlement agreements subject Binance to increase scrutiny for five years through a third-party monitor overseen by FinCEN, who will ensure Binance's complete exit from the United States. The monitor will be able to access Binance's systems, transactions, and accounts, and will review and report on all actions included in the settlement agreements. Failure to live up to these obligations could expose Binance to substantial additional penalties. The result of these agreements will be an end to company behavior that is posed risk to the U.S. financial system, U.S. citizens, and our country's national security for too long. And let me be clear, we're also sending a message to the virtual currency industry more broadly today and for the future. If virtual currency exchanges and financial technology firms wish to realize the tremendous benefits of being part of the U.S. financial system and serving U.S. customers, they must play by the rules. And if they do not, the U.S. government will take action. Today's announcement shows the Treasury is prepared to use all of its tools to carry out its crucial mandate of combating illicit finance and protecting the U.S. financial system, and this will make all of us safer. I want to end by thanking FinCEN, OFAC, and IRS criminal investigation employees who play a central role in protecting our national security. Adequate resourcing was critical to carrying out this work. Thank you also to the partner agencies here today for such effective collaboration. And with that, I'll turn the floor over to Deputy Attorney General Monaco. Thank you, Madam Secretary, and good afternoon. Today is a watershed moment. The Department of Justice and its partners are holding accountable the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange and the CEO who ran it for their criminal conduct. Binance vaulted to the top of the crypto market in part through the scheme exposed today by pursuing growth, market share, and profits at the expense of compliance with U.S. law. Today's charges and guilty pleas, combined with a more than $4 billion financial penalty, demonstrate the Justice Department's commitment to corporate accountability. And they sent an unmistakable message to crypto and DeFi companies, if you serve U.S. customers, you must obey U.S. law. A corporate strategy that puts profits over compliance isn't a path to riches, it's a path to federal prosecution. As detailed in the statement of FACS, Chiang-Peng Zhao was warned by his own compliance team that Binance lacked basic safeguards to prevent users from evading U.S. sanctions. He was warned of the high risk associated with some customers on their exchange. He was even warned that the CFO of another company had been arrested for sanctions violations and that the same thing could happen at Binance. But rather than implement the basic anti-money laundering safeguards that his team recommended, safeguards required by U.S. law, Binance and its founder operated as though the rules didn't apply, as though they were beyond our reach. Crypto assets may be advertised as borderless in nature, but the Department of Justice will enforce U.S. law across and throughout crypto markets, even in their darkest corners. Some say the key to success in the tech sector is to move fast and break things. Today's actions show that if what you break is the law, there will be consequences. Over five years, while building its business with U.S. customers, Binance enabled nearly $1 billion in illegal payments involving sanctioned countries and individuals. These actions put our collective security at risk. Today, companies are increasingly operating on the front lines of the geopolitical and national security challenges that mark today's global environment. That's why the Justice Department is focused on the intersection of corporate crime and national security. Today, corporate crime undermines not only our markets and investors, but also our national security. The laws we are enforcing today were designed to protect the security of our financial markets and to protect our financial institutions from exploitation by terrorists and money launderers. Today's actions show that those rules apply equally to traditional financial institutions and those powered by decentralized and cutting-edge technologies. Today's resolutions are the result of and a credit to the combined energy and expertise of prosecutors and law enforcement agents from across the government. And in particular, I'd like to thank Nicole Argentieri, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division who's here today. Matt Olson, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security who's also here on stage. And Tessa Gorman, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. They each lead teams who have worked tirelessly on this case. The partnership between the criminal divisions, money laundering and asset recovery experts and the national security divisions, export control and counterintelligence experts is a response to the growing convergence of white-collar and national security investigations. So we're combining our deep expertise from across the department to combat these new and evolving threats. Together with our partners, the Justice Department will hold accountable those who occupy the C-suite and the boardroom if they exploit technologies in violation of our laws. With that, I'll turn it over to Chairman Benham. Good afternoon. Thank you, Attorney General Garland, Treasury Secretary Yellen, Deputy Attorney General Monaco, and all of our law enforcement counterparts. Today the CFTC stands with the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department in protecting U.S. investors and financial markets from those who sought to create an empire through a calculated strategy of regulatory avoidance and arbitrage, outright defiance of the law, and breaching the fundamental principles of market behavior. Today the CFTC agreed to resolve charges against Binance, its founder and CEO, Chang Peng Zhao, and its former Chief Compliance Officer, Samuel Lim. Binance is the world's largest digital asset exchange and offers trading and spot digital assets and digital asset derivatives, including CFTC jurisdictional products such as Bitcoin futures, options, and swaps. The proposed orders impose a civil monetary penalty and discouragement totaling $2.7 billion against Binance, $150 million civil monetary penalty against Zhao, and a $1.5 million penalty against Lim. Binance's activities undermine the foundation of safe and sound financial markets by intentionally avoiding basic fundamental obligations that apply to exchanges, all the while collecting approximately $1.35 billion in trading fees from U.S. customers. Beyond the risks imposed on the U.S. financial system, Binance's activities impacted populations beyond investors in ways that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. As evidenced by the internal chats of Binance's CCO and others, Binance recognized that its platform was used to facilitate criminal activity, including terrorist financing, but chose to turn a blind eye, all in the name of profits. More disturbing, Binance and its leaders sought to dupe and indoctrinate their employees and customers, building a cult-like following premised on circumventing their own compliance controls to maximize corporate profits above LLs. As charged in the CFTC complaint filed in March of this year and set forth in the Consent Order, Binance made deliberate, strategic and calculated decisions to evade federal law over a period of nearly four years. Binance under Zhao's direction and control knowingly solicited and accepted orders from U.S.-based customers to trade digital asset commodity derivatives products and operated in exchange for the trading of futures options swaps and leveraged retail commodity transactions. Throughout this time period, Binance never registered with the CFTC as is required under U.S. law. The resolution of the action against Binance and Zhao within just eight months of its filing solidifies the CFTC's reputation as the proven leader in the civil enforcement space when it comes to digital assets. We are stalwart in ensuring CFTC registrants comply with our statute and regulations which serve to protect broader financial health and that directly impacts millions of American investors. Binance failed to diligently supervise its derivatives markets activities and miscarried requirements to implement adequate anti-money laundering, know your customer and customer identification programs required for certain CFTC registrants. These provisions serve to protect all Americans from those who seek to use the financial markets to facilitate criminal activities including domestic and international terrorism. As there remain certain classes of registrants who have lesser requirements, I believe our action here underscores what we could accomplish in CFTC markets with broader authority. American investors small and large have demonstrated eagerness to incorporate digital asset products into their portfolios. It is our duty to ensure that when they do so the full protections afforded by our regulatory oversight are in place and that illegal and illicit conduct is swiftly addressed. When as here an entity goes even further deliberately avoiding to employ meaningful access controls intentionally avoiding knowing customers' identities and actively concealing the presence of U.S. customers on its platforms there is no question that the CFTC will strike hard and aggressively. I want to commend the incredible work of Candy Han, Joseph Platt, Catherine Paulson, Joseph Patrick, Matthew Edelstein, Elizabeth Pendleton, Scott Williamson and Robert Howell. I'd also like to acknowledge our Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley and Principal Deputy Director and Chief Counsel Gretchen Lowe. Thank you. One on topic and one off topic question if you will indulge. So on the on topic based on the allegations of this and some of the other cases that you brought I'm wondering whether you know the concern in the industry about the ability of some of these startup companies some of the smaller companies to abide by this very costly regulatory and legal regimen that the United States requires whether it will mean that you can't really do virtual currency and have this industry thrive and some of the cutting edge things that Lisa and Monica just mentioned with that very heavy burden of regulatory compliance. I'm wondering whether you have a message for the industry when it comes to that and then if I can ask my off topic question. We're expecting at any moment the Israeli government and some of the other parties to announce an agreement for the release of hostages in being held by Hamas. If you can comment on that and also just what the Justice Department and some of the other agencies that are represented here are doing to respond to the attacks in Israel on October 7th. We know obviously the Hamas has had a presence here in the United States and the concern about how they raise money including of course by cryptocurrency is something that is on everyone's mind. I'm wondering what you're doing about that in light of what happened. All right. Let me start with the off topic. I was in a meeting this morning with national security officials law enforcement officials and the president regarding fentanyl and he told the press that his team has been actively negotiating over possibility of bringing home some of the hostages. They thought that we were very close to being able to do that but that he couldn't say anything more at that time and I also can't say anything more at that time at this time. With respect to the deaths of Americans, we always investigate deaths of Americans and we are actively investigating the deaths of the Americans using all the tools available to us. We have I think as the FBI director said at recent all threats hearing before the judiciary and as I've said we are investigating Hamas connections in the United States with respect particularly with respect to financial support and that includes cryptocurrency but we are also concerned about the possibility of more kinetic problems that they could cause and we're investigating that. Now I've talked a lot so on the on topic question I will say you follow the law. You don't get a special benefit because you think that you're what you're doing is better for society or better for small business or better for big business or better for international. The United States has laws and everybody including cryptocurrency platforms have to follow the law. There's been a lot of concern about how unregulated the cryptocurrency markets are. You were able to get these guilty pleas it took a long time. I'm just wondering what what do you how do you feel like realistically the significance of these guilty pleas are what what do you believe it could what kind of impact could it actually have on the on the cryptocurrency markets and then just a quick follow-up is you know there there is criticism that this is not a that this isn't significant enough that there nobody there might be a situation which nobody goes to jail and the penalty itself finance is able to pay that penalty. How do you respond to that criticism? I think I'm Nicole and Nicole Argentieri who's the acting assistant attorney general for the criminal division to answer most of the questions you're talking about the broader ones that have to do with regulation. It's possible Secretary Yellen or the CFTC chair would address. Thank you sir. So I'll take the second question first. I think looking at the pleas today by every possible measure these are some of the most significant penalties that the department has ever imposed on a financial institution not only is it one of the largest penalties imposed against a financial institution this is the largest penalty that's ever been imposed on a money services business it's the first corporate resolution with a cryptocurrency exchange and it's the first resolution with an MSB for sanctions violations and the financial penalty is just it's not the only significant part of the resolution. Finance which is the parent holding company is agreeing to plead guilty and as part of that we're going to impose a monitor for three years the company has to enhance its compliance program and to continue to cooperate with the department so we think it's quite a significant resolution. In addition the agreement with the company requires Zhao to step down from his role as CEO and prohibits him from any present or future involvement in operating or managing finance. So we think this is a very significant resolution. In what tools do we have and what should people take away from today I think that today's actions show that if you serve U.S. customers you must comply with U.S. law. U.S. financial institutions are the gatekeepers for the safety and security of our financial system and because Binance served a substantial amount of U.S. customers it was a U.S. financial institution that was required to comply with anti-money laundering laws and what those laws say is that Binance had to have an effective anti-money laundering compliance program including procedures to know its customers and a monitor for suspicious activity and what happened instead is Binance and Zhao prioritized profit over compliance and that failure to implement effective AML procedures led Binance to cause U.S. customers to transact with customers in Iran that violated U.S. sanctions. Treasury or CFTC want to? The podium is yours. We'll just very briefly I agree with the comments that were just made. We actually have rather strong legal authorities to police this type of activity. Virtual currency exchanges are financial institutions, financial institutions of all sizes are required to comply with AML CFT and sanctions obligations that they have and cryptocurrency or virtual currency exchanges have those obligations as well and I think today's actions show that we're very serious about enforcing the strong regulations that are already in place to make sure that illegal transactions are not fostered by cryptocurrency entities. This is a regime just as banks can flourish meeting these obligations. This is a regime that can support responsible innovation. It's not meant to end cryptocurrency activities but to the extent they occur it must be consistent with U.S. law. I'll just say from a market's perspective and distinguishing Secretary Yellen's comments about AML and KYC I've seen and we've seen gaps in the current regulatory structure around digital assets. I've advocated for filling in some of these gaps specifically around commodity tokens and I do think if we're able to do that obviously with Congress's help we can prevent these actions from happening and not have to be here after the fact. Some of the traditional tools of registration surveillance examinations they've worked well for decades in the U.S. financial system for both market regulators and we think those types of tools around digital assets if improved and expanded would certainly help in preventing some of these bad actions from happening again in the future. Well I had a question both for the DOJ and Treasury. So when it comes to the types of priorities enforcement priorities in crypto that the DOJ has had there was a big focus obviously on digital platforms that commit crimes or that at least let them happen. We've obviously seen the DOJ bring big cases now against Binance FTX Treasury separately has also taken increasingly taken actions against crypto players when it comes to money laundering or sanctions violations. So in lives of these actions having taken these actions in the market so far what are your priorities now both for the DOJ and Treasury going forward when it comes to crypto oversight. Are you thinking of deploying different types of strategies especially since we're seeing a growing aspect an angle when it comes to national security concerns beyond say a financial stability concern when it comes to these crypto platforms. Great question. I'm going to let the deputy begin the answer for the Justice Department and kick it over to Matt if you need on national security. Thanks very much for the questions to find out. I mean first thing I'd say is these are incredibly complicated and resource intensive and time consuming cases and so we need the resources and we're willing to and have as we've shown today and in prior cases deploy those resources. So we're always looking to add our resources and agent investigators prosecutors. Second thing I'd say is you have seen both of their actions today and in prior cases that we will be relentless in using every tool that we currently have to deploy against those who seek to use technologies in a way that abuse those platforms that cause the or don't prevent the use of those platforms for illicit activities. But we always want to make sure that we're working with Congress and others to make sure those tools that we have today stay up to date. Right. We know that the bad guys and the threat actors will try and to exploit every crack and crevice they can to exploit technologies to exploit gaps in the law. You've heard the CFTC chairman talk about some of the tools he needs. So we want to make sure the existing laws stay up to date and then I think we very much want to work with those in Congress and others who want to ensure that we can deploy every tool possible to make sure that the technologies that can help our prosperity and help our financial system also aren't ripe for abuse by illicit actors. That's why you've seen us do things like create the national cryptocurrency enforcement team. That's why and Matt Olson can speak to this. That's why they created the national security cyber unit because what we're seeing is more and more convergence of the exploitation both of the financial system and corporate crime in the national security space. I think I'll ask Matt to come up and I'm sure Treasury Secretary Yellen might want to speak to this as well. Thank you Lisa. I would just say briefly that as we respond to the nature of the threats we see today around the world whether we're talking about terrorism, we're talking about nation state adversaries like Russia and China and Iran we are increasingly using our tools sanctions enforcement, export control enforcement, cybersecurity from nation state adversaries. We're increasingly seeing the ability to use the tools that we have in the justice department from a law enforcement perspective to better protect the country by going after those threats using those tools in new and innovative ways. So to your question we are constantly adjusting our approach and our priorities to meet that threat on a daily basis and I think this case is just one more example of that. Well I would just add that I think what the case today shows is that Treasury's priority is to vigorously pursue investigations that involve sanctions violations or violations of AML CFT obligations that put our nation at risk that degrade the global financial system that aid illicit activity and terrorism and particularly in cases like this where there are violations of a truly egregious nature. So as I've said well of course we want to make sure that our tools stay up to date and are adjusted so that we can address emerging threats we believe we have strong tools and we've been increasingly deploying them to counter this type of abuse.