On Tuesday, Binance was named as one of the three largest counterparties for crypto exchange Bitzlato, in a US Treasury ការបញ្ជាទិញ that prevents any covered financial institution from sending funds to the relatively unknown firm.
Bitlatzo’s majority owner, Anatoly Legkodymov or “Gandalf”, was arrested and ចោទប្រកាន់ by the Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday in the Eastern District of New York. He’s charged with operating an unlicensed money transmission business.
The Treasury has បានបង្ហាញ that he’s a “primary money laundering concern” with connections to Russian illicit finance.
Lisa Monaco, Deputy Attorney General, today said this indictment is evidence they’re “unleashing the full force of the Department of Justice on the illicit actors and entities that support cyber criminals.”
អានបន្ថែម: តើមានអ្វីកើតឡើងជាមួយមូលនិធិសង្គ្រោះ 2 ពាន់លានដុល្លាររបស់ Binance?
The deep ties between Bitzlato, Binance, and Hydra
According to the order by the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Bitzlato’s top three counterparties were Binance, Russia-connected darknet market Hydra, and alleged Ponzi scheme “The Finiko.” FinCEN ranked these three in terms of total amount of bitcoin Bitzlato received between May 2018 and September 2022.
The latest actions taken by the Treasury are likely possible thanks to the seizure of records related to the Hydra darknet market. The Treasury order said a “notable percentage” of Bitzlato’s business stemmed from Hydra — about 6-8% of all its transactions over two years.
“Bitzlato processed over 1.46 million direct transfers with [Hydra] between May 2018 and early April 2022, representing transactional flows of nearly 20,000 BTC…” the order reads.
For comparison, Binance experienced more លំហូរចេញ over a recent day than the total number of transactions Bitzlato has ever processed.
Source: https://protos.com/the-deep-ties-between-binance-bitzlato-and-darknet-market-hydra/