The world’s largest crypto exchange by volume and its founder are named as defendants in a new money laundering lawsuit.
According to a new class action, Binance acted deliberately neglected to register itself with the appropriate authorities and failed to maintain adequate anti-money laundering protocols as a means of making profits in the US markets.
According to the lawsuit, Binance’s actions have led to Binance.com becoming a “hub” for criminals looking to wash off money.
“Defendants’ deliberate disregard of key laws and regulations made Binance.com a magnet and hub for criminals, users from sanctioned jurisdictions, terrorists, and other bad actors, as Binance.com became a critical part of their efforts to launder stolen cryptocurrencies. or otherwise obtained unlawfully.
Binance.com became a preferred choice as a ‘getaway driver’ for a host of bad actors.”
The lawsuit goes on to allege that Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao put profit above the law and provided bad actors with a way to cover up their crimes.
Furthermore, it is alleged that Binance.US, the US arm of the exchange, was created for no other reason than to distract US regulators.
According to Bill Hughes, an attorney at blockchain software company Consensys, the lawsuit will most likely not go to trial because Zhao will eventually try to reach a settlement. Hughes says there will likely be a massive on-chain analytics campaign if it goes to trial.
“If this case goes far into discovery and even into the form of pretrial motions (that probably won’t happen – CZ will open up that wallet and make it disappear at some point), then the effectiveness of blockchain analysis itself and un- chain asset recovery will be on trial! (cc: FBI, HSI, IRS-CI, Chainalysis, TRM, Merkle, Elliptic et al.)
Oh, the things Binance should say about tracking and recovery – quite a difficult position to be in, honestly, if you care at all about the industry.
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