Giant drug cartel used Binance to launder millions

If we are to believe the US Drug Enforcement Action (DEA), a global drug cartel used Binance to launder millions of dollars in black money. It concerns an amount of between 15 and 40 million dollars that flowed through Chanpeng Zhao’s crypto exchange.

Binance helped the authorities

Incidentally, it seems that Binance itself is not negatively involved in the whole thing. On the contrary, Binance would have helped the authorities track down the criminals. These included Carlos Fong Echavarria, who laundered $ 4.7 million via the blockchain.

By the on chain Following Echavarria’s activity, authorities also tracked down another account that received money from the criminal. The other account allegedly purchased nearly $42 million worth of crypto, at least $16 million of which was drug money.

“This is an example where the transparency of blockchain technology actually works against the criminals,” said Matthew Price of Binance. “The bad guys leave a permanent trace of their actions,” he continued to talk about the benefits of blockchain technology in the context of investigations.

Not just partying at Binance

It is not the case that Binance is only in the news in a positive way. In the above case, they helped the authorities, but it is rumored that the US Department of Justice has plans to sue Binance.

In some statements, US Justice Department insiders call Binance’s books a “black box.” Not even Binance’s former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) had full access to all accounts in his three-year stint with the exchange platform.

Binance itself of course denies the allegations and indicates that everything is fine at the exchange platform. We will have to wait and see for the time being, but it would be a good thing for the industry if things are indeed in order at Binance.