A bunch of people have speculated that this was a CYA move. I mean, if you get hired as the Compliance Officer for a company which clearly has no interest in compliance and only hired you to give a facade of respectability, you probably want to have a paper trail indicating "I clearly communicated that this was against the law, and they ignored me" for when the cops inevitably come.

Nothing says “innocent” like observing your criminality before getting right back to participating in the crime.

It could, if you're a whistleblower/informant. The SEC's bounty program makes it a pretty good idea. https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower

This was my thought as well. In all likelihood, the CCO is the person who informed to the SEC. If I were in that role, I would have.