On Tuesday, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) – the CEO of Binance – denied a report published by Reuters claiming that the well-known crypto exchange was involved in assisting the illegal transactions comprising up to $2.35 billion. The CEO issued more than 50 pages of the records of emails between the cybersecurity team of Binance as well as Reuters, which according to him, are sufficient to negate the report of Reuters.
Binance CEO Answers the Report by Reuters
The CEO moved to Twitter to challenge the recent reports released on the behalf of Reuters. The respective report, published on Monday, pointed out the vulnerable anti-money laundering measures as well as the Know Your Customer (KYC) policy of Binance which resulted in the money laundering of up to $2.35B via the exchange from Lazarus (a prominent hacking group based in North Korea), unlawful drug trade on Hydra (a darknet market), as well as the investment scam from 2017 to 2022.
Another allegation leveled by Reuters against Binance was permitting the Monero (XMR) to trade on the venue thereof notwithstanding the cautions that were issued by the law enforcement venues, mentioning that there are hazards of money laundering while dealing with Monero. Apart from this, it was asserted by the news outlet that its investigation is supported on the behalf of blockchain data, law enforcement statements, as well as court records. Nonetheless, the email exchanges bring to the front that Binance and Reuters did not agree on a point in the case of the allegations.
As per the argument of Binance, the journalists from Reuters did not agree to have a word with a couple of senior investigators taking into account Matt Price and Tigran Gambaryan who were engaged in working on the case files of Hydra and Lazarus. Price and Gambaryan are at the moment leading the cyber-forensics group of Binance. Apart from this, the news outlet did not approve of the request by Binance to review the wallet information as well as the UID on the investment frauds.
In the terms of Monero, the viewpoint of Binance is that several tech companies offer encryption on the messaging services as well as the devices thereof because of a legal right of having privacy. It adds that efficient law enforcement support, privacy, and financial freedom coexist because of adequate AML (Anti Money Laundering) practices and policies on the venue of Binance. The crypto exchange asserts that it works in collaboration with law enforcement organizations, policymakers, and regulators to guarantee that the trading of cryptocurrency is transparent along with focusing on protection from criminal operations.
Binance Undergoes Investigation from SEC Due to BNB ICO
In the meantime, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States (SEC) is additionally keeping an eye on if the securities laws were broken by Binance while it released the initial coin offering (ICO) of the BNB token in 2017. It is claimed by the Securities agency that the majority of the cryptocurrencies come in the category of securities and it has submitted lawsuits against several ICO projects. In this respect, the BNB white paper’s wording was modified by Binance in 2019 to avoid being misunderstood as security.
