OKEx Founder Taken Away by Police Amid Suspended Withdrawals
Xu Mingxing, the founder of OKEx, one of China's three biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, has been taken away by police. The exchange suspended withdrawals on April 19, citing that a 'key holder' was cooperating with a public security bureau in an investigation.
OKEx denied rumors that the investigation related to Mingxing involved money laundering and stated that it is not at liberty to discuss matters under investigation but confirmed it had nothing to do with anti-money laundering (AML) or the exchange itself.
This is not the first time Xu has spoken to police. In September 2018, he cooperated with authorities over accusations of fraud regarding a small-cap cryptocurrency.
OKEx holds around 200,000 Bitcoin in its wallets, approximately 1.1% of the circulating supply of Bitcoin. However, data from Glassnode shows that millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin was withdrawn during the last two days, after the CEO was taken away by police but before the exchange closed withdrawals.