UK court orders Binance to track hackers behind $2.6 million heist


As per reports, Cambridge based artificial intelligence lab Fetch.ai, filed a request based on which Royal Courts of Justice in London has ordered the world’s Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance to identify and track fraudsters involved in an alleged $2.6 million hack back on June 6.
According to report, Fetch.ai has claimed that $2.6 million worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen by hackers from its Binance account on June 6 and again resold the tokens for a significantly reduced price. Reportedly they sold those assets to a third party in an hour.
London’s High Court order has ordered Binance
to identity and freeze the cryptocurrency accounts of hackers involved in this
hacking on its platform. This account restrictions will prevent the hackers
from removing the assets that are in question. Fetch.ai alleges that hackers
made off with multiple cryptocurrencies: Tether, Binance Coin, Bitcoin, and
FET, Fetch.ai’s own token.
As per Syedur
Rahman, a partner from Fetch.ai's legal team at Rahman Ravelli, Binance is
already in the process of tracking down the individuals and frozen some of the
affected funds. Although Fetch.ai probably would have to produce evidence before
it can ask the court for its money back that its account was hacked before
returning the tokens. A representative for Fetch.ai told The Block "We
have been working closely with Binance and local enforcement to obtain details
about the hacker. Issuing a court order for the release of this information is
a standard process."
Current
situation in Binance
Recently Binance,
the largest crypto exchange in the world has come under a lot of scrutiny from
institutions across the globe. Various countries including U.K cautioned users
against Binance and also some of them imposed outright bans. The exchange has
also been implicated in massive cash-outs of illicit funds, with reports
emerging this year that the U.S. Department of Justice has begun investigating
the exchange as a vector of money laundering.
At the beginning
of July, two leading British banks restricted customer access to Binance.
First, Barclays called a restriction to transfers of customer funds to the
exchange. Then Santander UK blocked payments to Binance altogether a couple of
days later.
Both
institutions’ actions were responses to a consumer warning, issued by the UK’s
financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). As per the regulatory body. Binance was not
authorized to conduct cryptocurrency business within the UK. Italian regulators
issued a similar warning later in July. Binance suspended Pounds Sterling
(GBP), the UK’s official currency, as a withdrawal option on the exchange.
Binance had to
go through internal issues as two high-ranking executives resigning from their
respective branches of the exchange in the space of a month. Most recently,
Brian Brooks, who used to be a top U.S. banking regulator, stepped down as CEO
of Binance US after serving in the role for three months.
His departure
came three weeks after that of Ricardo Da Ros, who resigned from his position
as director of Binance Brazil back in July. Mr Da Ros had also only been in the
job a few months prior to his resignation.

Indrani bose
CBW - External Analyst
INDIA