Hong Kong’s financial regulator, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), has issued a public warning about MEXC’s illegal activities within its jurisdictions.
SFC stated:
“The entity claims to be a virtual asset trading platform operating on the aforementioned website. It targets Hong Kong investors but is not licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission.”
Consequently, the platform has been added to Hong Kong’s list of suspect virtual asset trading platforms, which includes other notable crypto companies such as ByBit.
Violation of local laws
According to the SFC, MEXC’s operation in the city-state violated local laws.
According to the SFC:
“Under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance, it is an offense to conduct a business in Hong Kong that provides virtual asset services (i.e., operates a virtual asset exchange) and/or operates such services in the market are brought into Hong Kong. Kong investors without a license.”
This is not the first time the SFC has issued a public warning regarding the MEXC exchange. Earlier this year, the regulator stated that scammers posed as coming from the crypto trading platform and lured unsuspecting victims into participating in what appears to be a crypto investment scam.
The scammers used links with addresses starting with “MEXC” and ending with random letters, similar to phishing links.
As such, the SFC said it could take regulatory action against the platform if necessary.
“The SFC will not hesitate to take enforcement action against unlicensed activities where necessary,” it added.
Meanwhile, the financial regulator warned crypto investors against trading on unregistered platforms, adding that they risk losing their investment if the platform experiences any form of failure.
SFC’s MEXC warning is not surprising as the financial watchdog recently ended the registration period for crypto companies to apply for licenses to operate within the Asian city-state. Unregistered entities must close their operations by the end of May.
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