Kalshi hires former FBI agent to lead anti-money laundering team

Hire comes as prediction markets face criminal probes, insider trading scrutiny

Kalshi, a leading prediction market company, has tapped Sean Fern, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor, to run its first anti-money laundering team. Kalshi said it hopes adding Fern will lend credibility to the surging platform amid mounting scrutiny over insider trading and market manipulation. Avoiding its own money-laundering scandal, Fern told NPR, is the reason the company tapped him.

Fern, who previously served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and as a special agent in the FBI’s international corruption squad, told NPR in an interview Friday that his aim is to keep financial criminals off the platform. He will work closely with law enforcement, regulators and senior Kalshi staff to monitor suspicious and potentially criminal activity on the platform, which has exploded in growth in the past year. “I want to make sure it’s a hard place to launder money or evade sanctions and commit fraud,” Fern said. “On a day-to-day basis, that involves knowing who our customers are, knowing where their money comes from, and making sure we aren’t doing business with sanctioned entities or parties,” he said. “And when something looks off or looks suspicious, we can catch it and make referrals to law enforcement.”

At the FBI, Fern helped lead the investigation into the multibillion-dollar bribery scheme tied to Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, a scandal that became known as 1MDB. He was also one of the lead prosecutors in the trial of OneTaste, an “orgasmic meditation” wellness company whose founders were sentenced to prison following convictions for forced labor conspiracy.

The hire echoes what cryptocurrency companies did during that sector’s boom times in the early 2020s. The cryptocurrency exchange Binance, for instance, hired former federal prosecutors and FBI agents to staff its compliance and anti-money laundering divisions. Several years later, Binance’s founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering charges.

Kalshi’s growth has been steep. According to the firm TickerTracker, Kalshi has crossed $260 billion in bets so far in 2026, already triple the amount traded in all of 2025. PitchBook estimates the company to be worth around $40 billion; it has 250 employees and plans to double its headcount over the next six months.

Federal regulators and law enforcement in Washington have launched criminal investigations into alleged abuse on prediction market platforms. Earlier this year, regulators settled with former U.S. Rep. George Santos over market manipulation. Federal prosecutors have also indicted a former U.S. Army soldier and a former Google employee for allegedly using non-public information to cash out on Polymarket, Kalshi’s main rival. In August, President Trump’s former teleprompter operator was fined by regulators for using advance notice of the president’s speeches to profit on Kalshi’s so-called “mention markets.”

Prediction market bettors can place wagers on everything from sports to what politicians say at public events to the outcome of elections. Experts have warned that introducing betting into domains like voting and policy decisions encourages people to monetize insider information.

Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana said that as banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions use Kalshi, the need to shore up financial crime safeguards has become apparent. “We are growing up,” Diana said.