Canada's richest man's fortune grows by $20 billion in months despite prison time

Despite a four-month prison term, Canada's richest man continues to get richer, adding several billion dollars to his net worth in less than a year.

In its latest list of the top 10 richest Canadians, Maclean's magazine estimates that Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, is currently the second richest person in the country.

The Thomson family, who controls the Thomson Reuters Corporation, tops the list with a net worth of $98.15 billion.

But at the rate he's going, Zhao could soon close that gap.

Zhao is currently worth $61.02 billion — a $20.72 billion jump in just a few months since the Bloomberg Billionaire Index reported that Zhao had a net worth of $40.3 billion as of May 6. At the time, his net worth made him the wealthiest crypto entrepreneur, the richest Canadian on the list, and the 34th richest person in the world.

Born in Jiangsu, China, Zhao (also known as CZ) moved with his family to Vancouver in the late 1980s after his dad got a job at the University of British Columbia.

According to Bloomberg, he completed a computer science degree at McGill University in Montreal, and his interest in cryptocurrency was sparked after a discussion at a poker game in 2013. Zhao founded Binance in 2017, and by 2018, it was the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

But it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for the multibillionaire.

In 2023, Zhao pled guilty to failing to implement anti-money laundering controls at Binance. He spent four months in prison and was released from custody on September 27. Not only has he resigned as CEO, but Binance was fined US$4.3 billion.

Maclean's list includes grocers, tech giants, developers, and investors.

"As a group, their wealth has ballooned over the last two decades: the combined net worth of the ten richest Canadians is now $261 billion, compared to $60 billion in 2004," states the report.

With files from Isabelle Docto