Binance accused Reuters of attacking members of its team

Binance accused Reuters of attacking members of its team
The exchange said that the news agency was mistaken again and provided a document that had previously been sent to reporters on behalf of the platform.

Binance accused Reuters of attacking members of the exchange's cybercrime and security department. The platform published an official message on Twitter (the social network is blocked in Russia) in which it claimed that Rеuters news agency was "wrong again.

On December 12, Reuters published a lengthy article citing unnamed sources saying that a disagreement at the U.S. Justice Department was delaying the completion of a criminal investigation into the Exchange's violation of anti-money laundering laws and U.S. sanctions. The article details U.S. law enforcement investigations into Binance.

Particular attention is given to the fact that Binance has hired former Federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS-CI) employee Tigran Ghambaryan to head the exchange's intelligence and investigations division. IRS-CI had handled a case against Binance in the past, Gambaryan was not involved in that investigation, but was close to the agents who handled the case, according to the article.

Journalists say Ghambaryan did not respond to a request for comment. But the exchange said in a statement 20 minutes after Reuters' publication that comments had been sent to the reporter and attached them. In the Binance document, Ghambaryan provides some information about his work at IRS-CI and talks about Binance's cooperation with law enforcement.

In April, Binance denied reports from the agency that it had agreed to hand over data about its customers to Russian agencies. The exchange said that claims that it had passed on customer data to "services controlled by the FSB and Russian regulators" were "categorically false."