Imagine you’re a guy with many billions of dollars. Would you pay a few of them in order to not be an international fugitive for the rest of your life?

As another person pointed out, he may have seen the catastrophe that SBF created, and decided cooperation was the best way to avoid that. Perhaps I was shocked due to Zhao's general hubris.

He does face 18 months in prison with the sentencing in Feb.

It seems like they got a deal where they can pay a fine and continue doing business in the US.

If you were him, why would you lose ~20% of your customers when you could just pay a fine and keep going? Sure he steps down, but he still owns the company.

> He lives in the Middle East, which does not have any extradition treaties with America.

Some Middle Eastern countries have extradition treaties with the US, but, more relevantly, a number of countries have legal extradition processes not dependent on treaties, including the UAE, the country where he lives.

> He lives in the Middle East, which does not have any extradition treaties with America.

He lives in Dubai, within one of the US's closest allies in the region. I'd be worried.

There are so many people who do not want to show up in the US (or elsewhere) and are living in Dubai that I would not be too worried. There is a full spectrum from former businessmen to current warlords.

Dubai has a lot to lose by damaging its reputation as a safe haven for wealthy exiles. My 2c.

Dubai extradites hundreds of persons every year, including to US.

They have even more to lose by creating an image of criminal safe-haven.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-10/uae-ramps...

Binance does a lot of business in the US. Probably in exchange for paying fines etc they will be able to keep in operation. I assume CZ himself won't suffer much. The Bitmex guy pleaded guilty of not enforcing AML properly and ended up with 6 months house arrest at home.

Binance is also paying many billions in fines to the US and exiting the US completely. I also don't understand why - if they're presumably headquartered outside of US jurisdiction, what are they gaining by paying exorbitant fines?

They're also further inviting every country they've ever had a customer in to levy huge fines against Binance.

I suspect that the threat of something similar to Global Magnitsky Sanctions (cutting them off from all dollar-denominated accounts everywhere) is a pretty big stick to use in negotiations. For a financial firm like Binance, access to bank accounts that can send dollars to and from US firms is pretty important, even without any US customers at all (losing access to banking in France, Cyprus, etc. would be equally difficult for them).

The US has recently (gradually over the past 20 years or so) started to really weaponize access to dollar-denominated accounts, essentially conscripting all the banks that want to do business with American banks into service of American foreign policy goals. This started in the aftermath of September 11th, for terrorism, then spread with the Magnitsky act of 2012 to include international corruption, and has slowly spread to more and more areas. So far the US has been somewhat judicious about using the tool- they seem to be aware that if they use it too often people will eventually just build ways around it- but it is a pretty big threat to wield against a company that absolutely needs to do business with somebody's banks.

Btw - I never found a good explanation why all USD transfers need to be routed trough usd banks. Google is quite silent on the subject - is it common knowledge or too obvious?

not common knowledge I think.

all usd swift wires get routed through 2 of the major banks - think it was JP Morgan Chase & Wells Fargo. this allows them to check all of these transfers for aml/cft and other sanctions blacklists.

heard this from a guy who works closely with Tether so i'm sure he'd know well

They don't.

However when you're talking about billions, it's difficult to keep them in anything but US treasuries.

How would you envision it work otherwise?

Just because a government doesn't have an extradition treaty doesn't mean they won't extradite. Most countries with non-extradition policies only apply them to native-born nationals and sometimes citizens in general. For some random foreigner, it depends entirely on the geopolitical situation.

Adolf Eichmann says hi.

Eichmann wasn't extradited (because Israel knew Argentina probably wouldn't agree based on previous history, they didn't even try not to tip him off), he was kidnapped by Mossad operatives and smuggled out of Argentina while drugged.

He lives in Dubai. What's the point of having money if you cannot escape that giant mall?

Dubai can offer an INSANELY AMAZING lifestyle for billionaires. Like, anything your debaucherous heart desires, forever. No consequences.

But you are still in Dubai. A cool skyscraper filled with water for diving, but also bus stops with AC.

You can get an insanely amazing lifestyle in many countries as a billionaire.