Binance Denies Passing User Data to Russian Authorities
Binance restricted on Thursday access to trading for some Russian users, and the next day, Reuters published a large text stating the exchange is actively cooperating with the FSB, transferring Russian user data to the Rosfinmonitoring. According to Reuters sources, the exchange could help the Russian special services track direct cryptocurrency donations in favor of the structures of Alexei Navalny.
Binance, in response to the Reuters investigation, has categorically denies that it helped the Russian authorities track opposition donations.
According to Reuters, in April last year, Gleb Kostarev, head of Binance for Eastern Europe and Russia, agreed to the request of Rosfinmonitoring to provide personal data of Russian users of the service, noting to a colleague that he “did not have much choice.”
Around the same time, Rosfinmonitoring was looking for ways to track cryptocurrency donations to Navalny’s structures — millions of dollars, according to Reuters, with surges after the assassination and then arrest of an opposition politician in January 2021.
