Some Middle Eastern countries have extradition treaties with the US, but, more relevantly, a number of countries have legal extradition processes not dependent on treaties, including the UAE, the country where he lives.
He lives in Dubai, within one of the US's closest allies in the region. I'd be worried.
Dubai has a lot to lose by damaging its reputation as a safe haven for wealthy exiles. My 2c.
They have even more to lose by creating an image of criminal safe-haven.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-10/uae-ramps...
They're also further inviting every country they've ever had a customer in to levy huge fines against Binance.
The US has recently (gradually over the past 20 years or so) started to really weaponize access to dollar-denominated accounts, essentially conscripting all the banks that want to do business with American banks into service of American foreign policy goals. This started in the aftermath of September 11th, for terrorism, then spread with the Magnitsky act of 2012 to include international corruption, and has slowly spread to more and more areas. So far the US has been somewhat judicious about using the tool- they seem to be aware that if they use it too often people will eventually just build ways around it- but it is a pretty big threat to wield against a company that absolutely needs to do business with somebody's banks.
However when you're talking about billions, it's difficult to keep them in anything but US treasuries.
all usd swift wires get routed through 2 of the major banks - think it was JP Morgan Chase & Wells Fargo. this allows them to check all of these transfers for aml/cft and other sanctions blacklists.
heard this from a guy who works closely with Tether so i'm sure he'd know well
If you were him, why would you lose ~20% of your customers when you could just pay a fine and keep going? Sure he steps down, but he still owns the company.