According to a Chainlysis analysis, Binance processed 205,000 transactions for Bitzlato between May 2018 and January 2023.
On-chain security firm Chainlysis stated on Tuesday that Binance enabled over $345.8 million in Bitcoin trade volume for the crypto exchange Bitzlato. The US Department of Justice charged Bitzlato with money laundering, and its founder, Anatoly Legkodymov, was arrested.
Bitzlato fell under investigation for allegedly passing $700 million in unlawful cash in an operation that authorities said: “fueled a high-tech axis of crypto crime”. The platform was suspected of using inadequate background checks and functioning as a key money laundering front linked to Russian criminal organizations.
According to a Reuters report on the topic, Binance was responsible for around 205,000 digital asset transactions between May 2018 and mid-January 2023, when American authorities cracked down on Bitzlato.
The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) also designated Changpeng Zhao’s cryptocurrency exchange as one of three primary counterparties for the Russian platform.
Furthermore, the research stated that $90 million in BTC transactions were conducted after August 2021. Notably, Binance announced intentions to tighten anti-money laundering (AML) checks and strengthen Know-Your-Customer (KYC) regulations in the same month.
The Hong Kong-registered coin trading platform is suspected of enabling the laundering of substantial quantities of illegal money, according to the agency. Last Monday, the United States reported the arrest in Miami of its co-founder and majority owner, Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national living in China. It also shut down its digital infrastructure in France.
According to a press release issued on Monday by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), high-ranking executives of Bitzlato have been apprehended as part of an international investigation against the crypto exchange, which includes law enforcement and judicial authorities from several European countries.
