Multiple US Agencies Probing World’s Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange
martyb writes:
Multiple US agencies probing world's largest cryptocurrency exchange:
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, is under investigation by a laundry list of US government agencies, including the US Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to a report by Bloomberg. The agencies are probing Binance for potential criminal violations, the report says, though the company has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
The investigations come on the heels of a report by Chainalysis that traced $2.8 billion worth of illicit bitcoin on exchange and trading platforms. Of that, $756 million went through Binance. Most of the suspect accounts received small amounts, but the majority of the illicit cryptocurrency flowed to a few hundred accounts that received between $100,000 to $100 million. Government officials are said to be focused on money laundering and tax evasion.
[...] IRS agents have been investigating Binance for months, Bloomberg reports, and they are apparently scrutinizing both account holders and employees of the company. The CFTC is looking into whether Binance allowed Americans to trade illegally on the platform-US residents cannot trade cryptocurrency derivatives unless the company offering them is registered with the agency. And the Justice Department has reportedly assigned the investigation to its bank integrity unit, which handles particularly complex cases.
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