Seizures from Binance Accounts
What is Binance? Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange where registered users can trade cryptocurrencies. At some superficial level, Binance works with law enforcement offices in the United States to help them seize assets for civil asset forfeiture proceedings when it suits Binance. Federal agents meet with Binance employees to share intelligence and develop anti-money laundering policies.
In some cases, Binance provides law enforcement officers in the United States with information about its customers in the form of an Excel spreadsheet with the account balance, deposit history, withdrawal history, Binance Pay, customer information, current assets & wallet, order history, fiat deposit history, fiat withdraw history, access logs, approved devices, KYC documents, Binance send, and OTC Payment.
Other platforms like Coinbase.com and Crypto.com have similar policies when cooperating with civil asset forfeiture. Through this cooperation, a federal agency of the U.S. Government might obtain a federally authorized seizure warrant to seize cryptocurrency from Binance accounts.
The search warrant might allege the cryptocurrencies in the Binance accounts were utilized by a Money Laundering Organization (MLO) to transmit the proceeds of international drug trafficking. Alternatively, the complaint might allege that the Binance accounts facilitated unlicensed money transmitting through cryptocurrency transactions.
For international drug trafficking cases, the complaint lists the money laundering activities of the MLO. Those activities might include:
- using couriers who pick up bulk U.S. currency obtained from drug trafficking sales;
- deposit the bulk currency into a bank account;
- convert the currency to Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies;
- use Binance to purchase USDT as well as bitcoin (BTC); and
- transmit the cryptocurrency to a digital address provided to cryptocurrency account operators by the criminal organization.
The complaint will allege that at least one of the financial accounts involved and utilized in the MLO conspiracy was located in the jurisdiction where the complaint was filed. Read more about the seizure of Bitcoin for forfeiture.
Attorney for Forfeiture Seizures from Binance
Call us if your assets were seized for forfeiture by the U.S. Government from a Binance account. We also help clients after a seizure of cryptocurrency from other platforms like Coinbase or Crypto.com.
We can help you determine what happened to your cryptocurrency after the seizure for forfeiture, secure a copy of the seizure warrant and affidavit supporting the warrant, and file a claim to contest the seizure.
Our civil asset forfeiture lawyers understand the best ways to contest the seizure for forfeiture.
Call 813-250-0500 to discuss the case.
This article was last updated on Thursday, May 1, 2024.
