Crypto Exchange BKEX Suspends Withdrawal Amid Money Laundering Probe

The cryptocurrency exchange BKEX said on Monday it decided to suspend withdrawals to cooperate with police investigations into alleged money laundering by some of its users.

In a statement on its blog, BKEX said: "BKEX team will fully cooperate with the regulatory investigation and do its best to restore the normal operation of the exchange. The team will actively work with the relevant authorities to resolve the current issues faced to ensure that the rights of our users are protected to the greatest extent possible."
Founded in June 2018, BKEX has more than 8 million users from over 100 countries across Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Money laundering through centralized crypto exchanges has been one of the major concerns in the industry.

In January, a US-based leading crypto exchange Coinbase was fined $50 million​ by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) for "significant failure" in its anti-money laundering (AML) management. Last May, the three co-founders of BitMEX​ cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform were fined a total of $30 million civil monetary penalty for illegal operations in the US and failure to implement an adequate AML program.