![]() ![]() ![]() It alleges: “Binance’s reliance on a maze of corporate entities to operate the Binance platform is deliberate it is designed to obscure the ownership, control, and location.” The CFTC says Binance’s organisational chart includes more than 120 entities incorporated in jurisdictions around the world, some with “commingled funds”. ‘Opaque web’īinance is best known through its platform, but the CFTC complaint refers to a structural complexity now commonly associated with the crypto industry, describing it as an “opaque web of corporate entities”. It goes on to quote Binance’s money laundering reporting officer complaining that she had “to write a fake annual … report to Binance board of directors wtf” after a company that had partnered with Binance requested a compliance audit. The CFTC also quotes a Lim message in December 2019 stating that “doesn’t even do AML namescreening/sanctions screening”. The complaint quotes Lim saying in an October 2020 chat that Binance’s compliance environment has amounted to “email sending and no action … for media pickup”. The CFTC quotes a 2020 chat between Lim and a Binance colleague in which they discuss removing the loophole: “If Binance forces mandatory KYC, will be VERY VERY happy.” Customers were able to avoid the KYC process if they withdrew less than the value of two bitcoin in one day – a sum equal to $22,000 in July 2019. The complaint details a loophole for getting round KYC procedures. Senior figures suggest Binance customers include terrorists. In another exchange in July 2020, a Binance employee wrote to Lim asking whether a customer whose transactions were “very closely associated with illicit activity” should be blocked or whether it was in the class of cases “where we would want to advise the user that they can make a new account.” Lim’s response included: “He can come back with a new account But this current one has to go – it’s tainted”. They are here for crime.” Binance’s money laundering reporting officer agreed that “we see the bad, but we close 2 eyes”. In a chat about certain Binance customers, including some from Russia, Lim said in February 2020: “Like come on. Lim’s colleague replied: “Can barely buy an AK47 with 600 bucks.” The complaint says Lim had received information in February 2019 “regarding Hamas transactions” on Binance and told a colleague that terrorists usually send “small sums”, as “large sums constitute money laundering”. ![]() The CFTC claims Binance knew it had facilitated potentially illegal activity, including with the Islamic militant group Hamas. While these are only allegations, of course, they are pretty serious and, if true, put Binance at significant jeopardy.” Warnings about Hamas “If they have an inside person who can contextualise and provide communications, that is even worse for Binance and CZ. “The CFTC allegations are shocking enough on their own,” says Fischer. Howard Fischer, a partner at New York law firm Moses & Singer, says the material could have been handed over to the CFTC by Binance, another government agency could be sharing the evidence with the CFTC or the material could have been provided by a company insider. It is clear from the evidence presented that the CFTC has access to sensitive material, including the content of Zhao’s phone. Running to 74 pages, the complaint is a long read, but worth it for its claims about the highly unconventional way that Binance operates, its attitude to regulation, its customers – whom senior figures allegedly suggested included terrorists – and how its senior operators were apparently willing to put this all down in writing. Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is one of Binance’s commercial partners. ![]()
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