Binance Still Processed $144 Million in Suspicious Crypto...

What’s Happening

Here’s the thing: The crypto exchange has been under scrutiny for its links to terrorist group payments.

Crypto exchange Binance continued to process payments with relaxed anti-money laundering standards after reaching a plea deal and paying a record fine of more than $4 billion related to those insufficient policies in 2023, according to a new Financial Times report dropped early Monday morning. The new investigation reveals hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transfers made by 13 specific Binance accounts, some of which had links to terrorist groups. (and honestly, same)

The Financial Times report indicates that practices intended to end as part of the crypto exchange’s plea deal, such as preventing individuals not tied to the personally identifiable information held on file from using accounts, are still ongoing.

The Details

The report covers the specifics of multiple accounts where hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions were being made and with suspicious activity for the payments’ sourcing and destinations. The suspicious accounts are dropped to have made $1.

7 billion in payments, with $144 million of that coming after Binance’s plea deal. Examples of the specifics regarding these accounts include a Brazilian man whose form of identification held on file was more than two decades old and had an illegible birth date, plus to an account tied to a Venezuelan woman who changed the bank details on her account 647 times in a matter of fourteen months.

Why This Matters

The account associated with the Brazilian man had received more than $10 million worth of crypto, including from crypto addresses associated with the terror organization Al-Law, while the account tied to the Venezuelan woman had more than $100 million worth of funds move through it. The report quotes multiple anti-money laundering lawyers who looked at the data and indicated there were a large number of red flags that would be obvious to compliance teams at any traditional bank or financial institution. In a response to a request for comment from Financial Times , Binance called the allegations “grotesquely sensationalist.

This is part of the broader shift happening across the tech industry right now.

The Bottom Line

In a response to a request for comment from Financial Times , Binance called the allegations “grotesquely sensationalist.

Are you here for this or nah?