Pakistani Authorities to Investigate Binance Crypto Exchange in Alleged $ 100 Million Scam: Reports

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Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has sent an official notice to crypto exchange Binance which is named in a major scam. The FIA ​​will investigate complaints from Binance users who alleged that the crypto exchange caused them to transfer funds to unknown third-party wallets. The scam is estimated to have cost people a collective total of around $ 100 million (around Rs. 739 crore). A notice was also sent to Binance headquarters located in the British Cayman Islands territory for responses.

In Pakistan, the notice was sent to Hamza Khan, managing director and growth analyst for the Binance unit there. Investigating authorities asked Khan to explain the company’s association with fraudulent online investment mobile apps, ”a report from Pakistan Dawn News reported.

During the initial investigation, Pakistani authorities managed to identify around eleven fraudulent apps that illegally collected funds from users. The names of these apps are random abbreviations that may or may not mean something. Some of these applications are HFC, MCX, HTFOX, BB001, and AVG86C, among others.

Later, fraudsters also tricked investors into joining Telegram channels by offering them expert betting signals. Each of these malicious Telegram channels hosted up to 5,000 people each, reports added.

Images of the FIA’s advice to Binance have circulated on Twitter.

The crypto exchange has promised full cooperation with the authorities in this matter.

In a statement, the additional director of the FIA’s cybercrime wing, Imran Riaz, confirmed to media that Binance had contacted them to ensure cooperation, according to a report from The News.

Binance Pakistan also posted a message promising cooperation on Twitter while saying it would not comment on the matter.

We do not comment on specific issues with regulatory and law enforcement authorities. However, as a policy, our general approach is to cooperate with investigations to the extent possible. Specifically, Binance tries to work closely with law enforcement and regulatory authorities.

Binance Pakistan: flag-pk: (@BinancePk) January 7, 2022

Binance was launched in 2017 with its headquarters in China. Later, when China began to tighten the noose around crypto business, the company moved its headquarters to Cayman Island.

However, it is not the only crypto exchange currently facing legal action in Asia.

An array of crypto exchanges have recently found themselves in the midst of problems in India as well.

Earlier this month, India launched an investigation into a number of crypto exchanges, including CoinSwitch Kuber, CoinDCX, WazirX, and Unocoin for allegedly tax evasion.

Scammers have become active in the crypto industry, as several reports and a growing number of cases have shown.

In December 2021, a report by research firm Chainalysis found that the scams stole more than $ 7.7 billion (roughly Rs. 58,697 crore) from crypto investors last year.

Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting Founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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