Binance Moved $345M for Bitzlato

Binance reportedly helped process 20,000 bitcoin, worth over $345.8 million, for Bitzlato, a financial institution recently seized for money laundering.

The over 200k total transactions filtered through Binance occurred from May 2018 until January 2023, when US authorities arrested its founder in Miami, according to a Chainalysis blockchain report shared with Reuters from January 24.

“Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, was among Bitzlato's top three counterparties by the amount of bitcoin received between May 2018 and September 2022, the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said last week,” wrote the exclusive report by Tom Wilson Angus Berwick.

The report was unable to determine if Binance successfully used KYC identification requirements on the users related to the flagged transactions. Chainalysis did confirm that over $90M worth of BTC was processed after Binance began stricter KYC requirements in August 2021.

Binance was among three entities tagged by US authorities in the ongoing money laundering case, which includes the US Justice Department and support from agencies in foreign countries. The other two were Hydra, a dark web marketplace notorious for illicit activity, and the Russian-based crypto scheme Finko.

Read the full report here.

What is Binance:

Binance positions itself as the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem and crypto-asset infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by volume. The Binance platform aims to increase the freedom of money for users and features a comprehensive portfolio of crypto-asset products and offerings, including trading and finance, education, data and research, social good, investment and incubation, decentralization, and infrastructure solutions.

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