The French investigators said on Tuesday that they had opened a judicial inquiry into the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, money laundering, tax fraud and other charges at the world, stating that he had denied the allegations.
The Economic and Financial Crime Section of the Paris Public Prosecutor Office (Junellco) said in a statement that the investigation included money laundering regarding drug trafficking.
Junalco said the investigation is investigating the period from 2019 to 2024, including crimes committed in France, but also in all European Union countries.
A spokesperson of Benance said in an email statement, “Benance completely rejected the allegations and will fight strictly against any allegations against it.”
After being convicted for violating American laws against money laundering, Benance founder and former CEO Changpeng Jhao was sentenced to four months in prison last year. Benance agreed to pay a fine of $ 4.3 billion (about Rs 37,224 crore).
After a year -long investigation, US prosecutors stated that Benance had employed a “Wild West” model that welcomed the culprits, and did not report more than 100,000 suspected transactions with nominated terrorist groups.
The statement of a spokesperson of Benance said on Tuesday that Benance advanced to Anti-Mani Laundering (AML) and compliance, in which the implementation of global regulator standards for AML and No-Yor-Castmer check (KYC) and Employee training included improvement.
The prosecution office said that France’s investigation began after complaints from users who alleged that they had lost money after investing through the stage, as they said that they said that they incorrectly aware them. Was done.
The users also complained that the platform was trading without receiving necessary approval.
In June 2023, the Paris prosecutor’s office stated that it had opened the initial investigation of the banns on illegal canvasing of customers and “increased money-laundering”.
At that time, the founder of Binens Jhao said in a post on X that the news was “Fad” – the word used in Crypto Circle to dismiss the news considered as negative.
Benance is also facing cases and investigation in many countries.
This month, the US Supreme Court allowed another case to proceed against Benns and Zhao. The trial included investors who accused Benance of illegally selling unregistered tokens, losing a lot of their value.
In December, Australia’s corporate watchdog said that it had sued the local derivative business of Benance, alleging that its retail customers were denied consumer security after being misused as wholesale customers. Was.
Regulators have long warned about Crypto’s role in crime. The global body responsible for dealing with money laundering and terrorist financing, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) earlier warned that Crypto’s property is “the risk of becoming a safe shelter for financial transactions of criminals and terrorists”.
The Crypto industry suffered a major setback in 2022, when a series of bankruptcy in top crypto firms exposed widespread fraud and misconduct and left millions of investors with heavy losses. But the prices of cryptocurrency have raised a new height in recent months, as US President Donald Trump has taken a pro-crypto attitude.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
