US authorities are looking into the connections between hedge funds and cryptocurrency Binance for possible money-laundering offenses.
The Western District of Washington U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle served a summons on investment firms, according to unnamed individuals quoted by the Washington Post, requesting documents of conversations with Binance in recent months.
Legal experts claim that the purportedly issued subpoenas are not indicative of charges being filed against the cryptocurrency exchange or hedge funds because the government is still reviewing the available information and exploring the possibility of reaching a settlement with Binance.
Since 2018, when prosecutors started looking into a number of cases involving illegal funds flowing through the exchange, the crypto exchange has been under investigation in the US. Unlicensed money transfers, a money laundering plot, and transgressions of criminal sanctions are all alleged offenses.
Crypto exchanges that do “substantial” business in the United States are required by the Bank Secrecy Act to register with the Treasury Department and adhere to anti-money laundering laws.
Binance under investigation in the US
Despite having made major expenditures in compliance processes, the crypto exchange Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann conceded to the Washington Post that the company’s initial approach to regulatory compliance was unsatisfactory.
Binance has joined the Association of Certified Sanctions Specialists, or ACSS, in order to comply with the sanctions imposed. The cryptocurrency exchange revealed on January 6 that the ACSS would organize certification training for its sanctions compliance team.
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s standards and potential dangers of violations will be covered in the ACSS training for Binance’s team.
After facing criticism for being unregulated, Binance recently joined the American crypto advocacy group Chamber of Digital Commerce. The group supports a range of public policies, such as tax parity for digital assets, Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, less definite regulatory guidance for security tokens, and studies on central bank digital currencies.
