The BNB is currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency. The US financial agency SEC reportedly suspects that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange was selling unregistered tokens, and the Reuters news agency pulled out some old cases alleging that Binance is the center of hackers, fraudsters and drug traffickers.
According to Bloomberg, at least one U.S. resident claims to have participated in the ICO in 2017, which could be a key fact for the SEC, which has already filed multiple cases against a number of ICO projects.
Reuters exposes Binance
In early May, Reuters published a lengthy special report stating that Binance processed at least $ 2.35 billion in transactions from hacking, various frauds, and drug sales between 2017 and 2021 and that at the time it had a weak Know Your Customer ( KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) protection.
A Reuters study found that the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has served as a channel for laundering at least $ 2.35 billion in illegal funds for five years. Among other cases, Reuters mentions the hacking of Eterbase, where part of the revenue through Binance was laundered by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus and Binance’s connection to the Russian drug market Hydra.
In September 2020, a North Korean hacker group known as Lazarus broke into the small Slovak crypto exchange Eterbase and stole cryptocurrencies worth about $ 5.4 million. It was one in a series of Lazarus cyber robberies that Washington said were aimed at funding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Hours later, hackers opened at least 20 anonymous accounts on Binance, which allowed them to convert stolen funds and cover up a trail of money, according to correspondence between the Slovak National Police and Binance.
In just nine minutes, using only encrypted email addresses as identification, Lazarus hackers created Binance accounts and traded cryptocurrencies stolen from the Slovak stock exchange Eterbase.
Binance has processed at least $ 2.35 billion illegally
Binance has processed transactions totaling at least $ 2.35 billion stemming from hacks, fraud, and drug trafficking, Reuters calculated by reviewing court records, law enforcement statements and blockchain data collected for the news agency by two companies for blockchain analysis.
