Binance under investigation by Justice Department, IRS
Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the inquiry, the officials who probe money laundering and tax offenses have sought information from individuals with insight into Binance’s business, the report said.
“We take our legal obligations very seriously and engage with regulators and law enforcement in a collaborative fashion,” a spokesperson for Binance said in an email, adding that the company does not comment on specific matters or inquiries.
“We have worked hard to build a robust compliance program that incorporates anti-money laundering principles and tools used by financial institutions to detect and address suspicious activity,” the spokesperson added.
The investigation comes after Germany’s financial regulator BaFin last month warned that Binance risked being fined for offering its securities-tracking digital tokens without publishing an investor prospectus.
Binance had also tried to register in Malta after a relocation attempt in 2018 and but never received authorization to operate in the country.
When it got started, Binance launched in China. However, as the country began to crack down on crypto, it decided to move to Japan. Not long after getting set up in its new headquarters, Binance suffered an attack on the exchange, leading Japan’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) to require Binance to apply for a license. That apparently wasn’t within the scope of the exchange’s business model, and it left to find a new home, reportedly landing it in Malta.
In February 2020, the MFSA said that in view of a report in a section of the media referring to Binance as a “Malta-based cryptocurrency” company, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) reiterated that Binance is not authorised by the MFSA to operate in the crypto currency sphere and is therefore not subject to regulatory oversight by the MFSA.
CDEIU / Reuters
