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Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Fisco has accused Binance, leading cryptocurrency trading platform of aiding and abetting the laundering of stolen funds. Fisco is therefore suing Binance.
Fisco cited a hack in September 2018 which cost it almost 6,000 bitcoin amounting to $60 million. It claims to have traced 1,451 bitcoin worth $9 million back to an address owned by Binance a short while after the hack. Fisco filed a complaint in the Northern California District Court on 14 September.
Fisco claims against Binance in money laundering suit
The hack coincides with the event of Binance opening a bank account in Malta in September 2018 having moved from Japan to Malta due to Japanese regulative issues. The disadvantage that Binance had with the money launderers is its anti-money laundering protocols which Fisco said isn’t up to the industry standards.
Binance has a policy of letting its new users create accounts with little or no information. Fisco claims that this policy is weak and could be the reason the giant was taken advantage of.
More so, having known about the stolen fund, Binance did nothing to interrupt the laundering process which Fisco said the giant is either negligent or deliberately did not. Fisco is charging Binance for what it lost to the laundering as well as other penalties, Fisco report said.
Malta houses a number of cryptocurrencies exchange who gets authorisation from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). The MFSA had said that Binance does not have the authorisation to co-operate in the cryptocurrency circuit in Malta. The authority said it was looking into the companies activities in Malta.
Binance is currently giving up to $15 in bonus for people to sign up for an account and trade Bitcoin. It has also created something called “Innovation Zone” which it says will allow select users to trade new decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens.
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