Binance Compliance Officers: ‘Billions of Revenue’ Spent on KYC

Three prominent employees of Binance’s compliance team shared their insights on fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, and bad press surrounding the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Reuters recently published several investigation articles about Binance and its connection to illegal activities. According to the news service, Binance has turned into a hotbed for illicit activity, and it disregarded multiple money-laundering warning signs. Binance User Base’s Links With Hydra According to Reuters, Binance’s user base has strong ties to Hydra, a Russian-language darknet market, and the exchange has enabled $780 million in payments tied to Hydra since 2017. Former investigators of the American Internal Revenue Service’s cybercrime unit, Tigran Gambaryan, and Matthew Price, now head Binance’s compliance team. Major darknet markets, including Silk Road, AlphaBay, and Hydra, were taken down by Gambaryan and Price. The exchange hired Chagri Poyraz, a former HSBC sanctions expert, as its global head of sanctions compliance. The exchange operates in several countries despite not having an officially registered headquarters. A number of the allegations, including that Binance supports more money-laundering than other exchanges and has turned into a hub for crime, were refuted by Binance’s two top officials. Binance announced a new criterion for users to be “verified” to improve its Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money L...