FinCEN: Binance was one of Bitzlato's largest counterparties

Article Reading Time:
1 min.

Anti-financial agencyUS crimes (FinCEN) stated that the Binance cryptocurrency exchange is one of the three largest counterparties to the Bitzlato cryptocurrency platform for Bitcoin transactions.

The document states that from May 2018 to September 2022, Binance was a partner of the platform, comparable in volume to the darknet platform Hydra.

FinCEN Says Nothing About Shippingbitcoins from Binance to Bitzlato, but only about receiving. Among the largest senders are Hydra, as well as TheFiniko and the Finnish crypto exchange LocalBitcoins. The US agency said that approximately two-thirds of Bitzlato's main receiving and sending counterparties are associated with darknet markets or fraud.

From 2019 to 2021 passed through Bitzlatoabout $450 million. About $206 million, law enforcement officials say, came from the darknet market, $224 million came from transactions related to fraud, and $9 million from extortion.

According to a Binance representative, the cryptocurrency exchange is cooperating with law enforcement agencies in the Bitzlato case and supporting the investigation.

Yesterday the Bitzlato team published a message
about the hacking of the platform, saying that the attackers managed to withdraw a small amount of assets. However, the next day it became known that the US Department of Justice had arrested
platform co-founder Anatoly Legkodymov.