U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday charged KuCoin, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and its two founders with failing to comply with U.S. anti-money laundering regulations.

According to CoinMarketCap, KuCoin is one of the world’s largest spot cryptocurrency exchanges, with daily trading volume exceeding $2 billion.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said on Tuesday that since KuCoin's inception in September 2017, the exchange "willfully failed" to establish and maintain a plan to prevent the platform from being used for illegal activities, including terrorist financing. The company also failed to put in place appropriate controls to verify customers' identities and failed to file reports on suspicious transactions.

"By failing to implement basic anti-money laundering policies, the defendants allowed KuCoin to operate in the shadows of the financial markets and be used as a haven for illicit money laundering," prosecutor Damian Williams said in a statement, adding that the exchange received more than $5 billion in suspicious and criminal funds and remitted more than $4 billion.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates the derivatives market, also filed a lawsuit against KuCoin on Tuesday.