A huge fine has been imposed on Binance crypto exchange by FINTRAC for the alleged violations of the AML regulations.
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) released a press statement today regarding two significant breaches. These violations also include the non-registration as a foreign money services business and the non-filing of significant transactions in virtual currency.
Based on FINTRAC’s accusations, Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, did not report transactions worth more than $10,000 over 5,902 consecutive times from June 2021 to July 2023.
Binance aims to be a service provider in the area of foreign exchange. Because of Binance Holdings Limited’s two violations, the regulatory body published on May 7, 2024, that this company was liable to an administrative monetary penalty in the amount of $6,002,000.
A penalty of $4 million is due to compliance checks done in 2023. 4 million, amounting to 6 million Canadian dollars.
FINTRAC is the financial intelligence unit of Canada, and it is tasked with the mission of preventing money laundering and other financial crimes. Through the employment of blockchain analytics, it was found that Binance’s oversight of not recording virtual currency transactions was crucial to maintaining transparency in the financial system.
This latest action is a result of the United States being equally challenging regulatoryly for Binance. In November 2023, the Department of Justice in the United States resolved a plea agreement with the exchange and a settlement of $4 billion for the alleged sanctions and money laundering breaches.
Changpeng Zhao, who created Binance and was its CEO, was then forced to leave as part of the agreement and pay a $50 million penalty. Zhao got a four-month prison term after pleading guilty to breaching money laundering preventative regulations.