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(Bloomberg) — Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was ordered to spend four months in prison for failures that allowed cybercriminals and terrorist groups to freely trade on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Zhao, 47, was sentenced Tuesday by US District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle. Dressed in a dark suit with a light blue tie, the billionaire arrived in court flanked by half a dozen lawyers. His mother and sister watched his sentencing from the front row of the courtroom.

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In imposing the sentence, Jones said he hoped Zhao understood that, despite “wealth, power and status,” no person is immune from prosecution or above the laws of the US. Zhao didn’t visibly react to the sentence.

Read More: Binance and CZ’s Fortunes Are Set to Grow, Jail or no Jail

The sentence was far below the three years prosecutors had sought. Lawyers for Zhao, however, had implored Jones to spare him from prison, pointing to cases involving similar banking law violations that resulted in probation. 

The outcome closes a long-running probe for the Justice Department, which had sought to make an example out of Zhao to an industry rebounding from a slew of high-profile scandals. The allegations have cast a shadow over Binance and the man known as ‘CZ’, one of the industry’s most recognizable figures.

Zhao has already paid a $50 million fine and stepped down as Binance CEO as part of a plea deal with the government in November. Binance also pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering and sanctions law violations, agreeing to pay a $4.3 billion penalty and appoint an independent monitor to oversee compliance at the company.

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Ahead of his sentencing, Zhao addressed the court. He noted that he traveled to Seattle to face charges instead of staying at his home in the United Arab Emirates, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US.

“I left my family to come to the US to take responsibility for my actions,” Zhao said. “That’s because responsibility is a core value for me, and I live by that.”

Arguing in favor of prison time for Zhao, federal prosecutor Kevin Mosley said the Binance founder’s violations of US law were intentional, not an oversight. 

“This wasn’t a mistake,” Mosley said. “It wasn’t a regulatory ‘oops.’” But he also said the sentence the US sought was proportionate. Mosley said the government wasn’t suggesting Zhao’s crimes were comparable to FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and also wasn’t “trying to kill the crypto industry.” 

Unlike Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced in March to 25 years prison, Zhao wasn’t accused of stealing customer funds. 

His conviction followed a multi-agency investigation into Binance, an exchange that began in Shanghai in 2017 and ballooned to process trillions of dollars worth of trades each year.

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Zhao, who migrated from China to Canada at age 12, pleaded guilty to failing to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program at Binance. Zhao’s effort to put his company’s growth over compliance allowed Binance to circumvent regulations that apply to financial institutions servicing U.S customers. The lack of an AML program led to illicit actors, including crypto mixers, hackers and terrorist groups including al-Qaeda and ISIS, to trade Bitcoin on the platform. 

In an example detailed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, used Bitcoin transactions to raise money for the Palestinian resistance. Hamas, which has been designated by the US as a terrorist organization, murdered more than 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7.

Prosecutors said Binance operated on a “Wild West model” that turned it into the colossus of crypto exchanges. While Zhao launched an American offshoot, Binance.US, in 2019, he allowed a loophole for big traders to continue using the international platform.

The lack of proper compliance led to some customers trading with residents of Iran in contravention of US sanctions. Between 2018 and 2022, Binance processed at least 1.1 million transactions that violated U.S sanctions, worth about $898 million, the government’s memo outlined.

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The government didn’t allege that Zhao knew that funds passing through Binance were the proceeds of crime, his lawyers wrote in a sentencing memo. Other Binance employees, however, have acknowledged terrorists and customers from sanctioned countries, such as Russia, had used the exchange, according to the government.

More than 160 friends, colleagues and investors submitted letters in support of Zhao, painting a picture of a humble, charitable family man and innovative entrepreneur who preferred Toyota minivans to luxury cars and his aunt’s home-cooked meals over five-star restaurants.

Pointing to cases involving similar violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, Zhao’s lawyers argued that an overwhelming majority didn’t result in prison time. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes was sentenced to two years probation and agreed to forfeit $10 million for failing to safeguard against money laundering.

Despite Zhao’s well-publicized criminal case, he has held onto his personal fortune. His wealth ballooned by $25 billion as the crypto industry recovered last year and he is currently ranked as the 38th richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

(Updates with detail from the hearing, background.)

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