It is revealed by a report that, with the motive of increasing its cryptocurrency exchange market presence in Russia, the cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance has helped the Russian authorities with user data.
Last year Binance worked with the Financial stability board which is one of the governmental agencies of Russia. Binance has been helping the financial stability board of Russia by sharing its user data with the opposition party figure Alexei Navalny. He has been leading the network to uncover the corruption in the government and now has been imprisoned by the Putin government.
Sharing these reports with the Russian Government goes against the platform’s privacy policy norms, and if these allegations are true, Binance will be guilty of helping the Russian government with the motive of bolstering their business in Russia. Reports suggest that Binance shared details of transactions linked to Alexei Navalny with the Russian financial authority. Reports from the Reuters Publication also suggest that Binance has been sharing its client’s data with the Russian government and helped the government in tracking the bitcoin accounts linked to Alexei Navalny. This move is considered to be an “anti-state crime” and he was jailed by the Putin government in Moscow in April 2021.
According to the reports, the financial intelligence unit of Russia which is also called Rosfinmonitorign had asked Eastern Europe head of Binance, “Gleb Kostarev” to provide the client details such as names and addresses to track the millions of dollars raised by Navalny.
Rosfinmonitoring which is seen as the successor of the KGB works under the federal security services as one of the security service units of the Putin government. These funds were raised by Navalny for working on the corruption motives of president Putin and the international cryptocurrency donations were planned to be used for the same.
As per the claims of Binance, their representative did not have much of a choice but to consent to the Russian government’s request. Although Binance has reported that the Russian government was not explicitly discovering the records of Navalny, it was actively looking for the complaints of the individual involved against Russia before it invaded Ukraine.
Although Binance halted all association with the Russian government following the invasion of Ukraine, it continued to let Russian citizens access the platform until recently. However, it was forced to limit its services to Russian customers due to the European Union’s sanctions this month.