The crypto exchange Binance has surprisingly announced its collaboration with US law enforcement agencies in an investigation into Russian money launderers.
The crypto exchange is available around the globe Binance under heavy regulatory attack. In this context in particular, there is one piece of news that makes you sit up and take notice. Because Binance has now made common cause with the US judiciary to take a Russian crypto exchange for money laundering.
Suex, the name of this Russian crypto exchange, allegedly laundered money for cyber criminals. Announced on Wednesday Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury Department is offering a series of measures to be taken against crypto addresses belonging to Suex. In one Blog post Binance explained its cooperation with law enforcement agencies.
“Based on an extensive review by our investigation team, several accounts associated with the addresses mentioned in the OFAC announcement were identified earlier this year and appropriate action taken against them.”
, it says on this matter in the Binance article. Money related to cyberattacks is often laundered through nested services and wallet accounts. In this case, this probably also happened via accounts with Binance. According to the Exchange, the illegal activities of Suex became known after an internal examination of certain documents. Binance then shared its findings against Suex with the US law enforcement authorities.
Binance CEO is now thinking about headquarters
However, Binance was able to identify several accounts at the beginning of this year. The exchange has taken these accounts offline on the basis of internal security measures. She passed on information about the addresses mentioned in the announcement as well as further information from the internal investigation to the responsible authorities.
However, in view of the post published by Binance, one cannot get rid of the feeling that the stock exchange is trying to turn itself from Saul into Paul. Because before this cooperation, Binance had been offering services for unverified users for a number of years. As a result, criminals could certainly use the platform for dishonest activities. For this reason, Binance has also reportedly been investigated by US authorities for violating AML regulations.
CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, meanwhile, announced in one Interview with the South China Morning Post to move the Exchange to a central headquarters. The current decentralized operation should be abandoned for “compliance reasons”. The exchange has even hired investigators and ex-officials from top government agencies to help the platform comply with financial laws.