KuCoin Faces $14M Canadian Action in Registration, Money Laundering Controls Dispute

The speech is appealing an enforcement enactment from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.

Sep 25, 2025, 9:36 p.m.

KuCoin is appealing a Canadian enforcement action successful which the speech was accused of failing to registry arsenic a money-services concern and failing to support due defenses against wealth laundering, a lawsuit that led to a punishment of much than $19 cardinal ($14 cardinal U.S.).

That unusually ample punishment from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) was imposed aft uncovering that Seychelles-based Peken Global Limited, operating arsenic KuCoin, didn't study ample crypto transactions and didn't emblem suspicious transactions that whitethorn person progressive wealth laundering oregon violent financing, the bureau said connected Thursday.

The regulator said KuCoin didn't study ample transactions connected astir 3,000 occasions from 2021 to 2024 and successful 33 instances "failed to study fiscal transactions wherever determination were tenable grounds to fishy that the transactions were related to the committee oregon the attempted committee of a wealth laundering oregon a violent enactment financing."

KuCoin said it submitted an entreaty with the Federal Court of Canada "on some substantive and procedural grounds."

"While KuCoin respects the decision-making process and remains committed to regulatory compliance and transparency, it disagrees with some the uncovering that KuCoin is simply a Foreign Money Services Business and the punishment imposed, which KuCoin maintains is excessive and punitive successful nature," the institution said successful a Thursday statement.

This FINTRAC punishment represents the bulk of the agency's fines successful the past year, it noted, having imposed fines 23 times for a full of $25 cardinal successful that period. KuCoin's alleged violations were said to person been superior and, successful the lawsuit of the nonaccomplishment to study suspicious transactions, "severe."

KuCoin has been penalized successful assorted jurisdictions successful akin cases, including one from the Ontario Securities Commission successful 2023. In the U.S., the institution settled with the Department of Justice earlier this year, paying astir $300 million, pleading blameworthy to an unlicensed-operations complaint and agreeing to enactment retired of the country.

Read More: South Korea Plans Sanctions Against KuCoin, Others: Report

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