A prominent US legislator opened a congressional investigation into cryptocurrency exchange Binance after learning that the site handled over $1.7 billion in transactions connected to Russia’s oil “shadow fleet” and sanctioned Iranian businesses.
In a letter to Binance CEO Richard Teng on Tuesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal, the ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, asked for internal data and papers pertaining to the exchange’s sanctions controls and compliance procedures.
Blumenthal said Binance compliance personnel had identified two partner entities, Hexa Whale and Blessed Trust, as middlemen facilitating trading with Iranian government-affiliated entities, citing reports from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Fortune.
According to reports, internal investigators also tracked payments to crews of tankers that operate to get around sanctions on Russian oil exports and transfers to wallets linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
According to the senator, “Binance seems to have disregarded obvious warning indicators, wilfully permitted illegal accounts to function, and even actively assisted organisations involved in money laundering.”
He asked for correspondence, account information, and internal compliance reports, as well as any documents pertaining to Iranian users and members of Russian sanction-evasion organisations.
The current accusations, according to a Binance spokeswoman, are untrue because the platform detected and reported suspicious activities. The exchange insisted that it did not let Iranian users on the platform and refuted previous media coverage.
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