Changpeng Zhao Transferred to New Facility, Still Incarcerated

On Thursday, speculation spread on social media that Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former CEO of Binance, had been released from prison early.

Contrary to these claims, Zhao has not been fully released but has been moved to a different facility.

Rather than a complete release, Zhao has been transferred to an administrative facility in the Greater Los Angeles area, just 38 days ahead of his scheduled release. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has updated his status to show he is now under the jurisdiction of the Residential Reentry Management (RRM) Long Beach field office, which manages federal offenders in central and southern California.

Zhao’s legal issues originated from his guilty plea in November for violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). He received a prison sentence in April that was shorter than what prosecutors sought, yet longer than those given to other cryptocurrency leaders for similar violations.

Previously, Zhao was serving his sentence at Lompoc II, a low-security federal prison in Santa Barbara County, California. This situation is quite different from that of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, who is serving a 25-year term at New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC).

In November, Zhao resigned from Binance and admitted to a felony charge as part of a settlement with U.S. regulators, which also included a $4.3 billion fine for Binance and a ban on him holding executive roles in cryptocurrency companies in the future.

Despite online rumors, there is no verified information suggesting Zhao has been released following his transfer. The BOP website still lists his release date as September 29.