Binance blocks customer’s account over transaction to Suex address

On 22 September, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance abruptly blocked one of its users’ accounts without warning. The platform later explained that he allegedly sent funds to the U.S.-sanctioned Suex bitcoin exchange address. The user himself denies making transactions in favor of the exchange or darknet marketplaces.

Data: screenshot of a Binance support letter.

According to the affected user, he never used Suex personally.

“A year ago I made a transfer of $1,700 from Binance to an address of a friend who provided it to me as personal. It turned out that this was the Suex address, which is on the sanctions list. Moreover, this was an internal Binance account,” he told ForkLog.

The user added that he knows the recipient personally; the recipient is a trader. He suspects that his acquaintance gave the Suex address because he wanted to cash out through the exchange.

The user noted that the real reason for the block was not disclosed to him immediately:

“I first tried to reactivate my account following Binance’s FAQ. I answered a few questions about the account status, passed Face Verification. They told me that the account can’t be unfrozen automatically and that I should contact support. In the chat, my message was escalated to a specialized department for review until September 27.”

A day later, another specialist told him that he supposedly violated the Terms of Use and that his account is now under investigation:

“There was no mention of Suex. In support, they wrote that he should just wait. And the next day, September 24, a letter arrived about a presumed connection with Suex. Along with it came another that the account reactivation had failed.”

The user refused to disclose the exact balance in the blocked account, merely saying that “there are a lot of funds”.

“This is my main personal account, created back in late 2017 and originally verified to me. So I keep the majority of my hot funds there,” the user added.

A partner at Briefcase’s Kyiv office, Artem Kotov, who represents the affected user, told ForkLog that he personally knows of at least six more similar cases. The amounts blocked on each account exceed $100,000.

“At this stage, it would be premature to speak about the legal prospects of the situation, but from the cases that have already come into our proceedings, we see that the best solution is proactive communication with Binance’s support,” the lawyer said.

He added that not all ordinary users, due to a lack of specialized knowledge, can fully verify the source of assets and rely on the exchange, which has all the tools necessary for deeper verification and for which this procedure is mandatory.

“In practice, Binance has for a prolonged period ignored basic verification procedures in the form required to check assets entering the exchange, thereby jeopardising the assets of its users and giving loopholes for the entry of ‘dirty’ assets into the exchange,” Kotov said.

According to him, if Binance refuses to unblock user accounts, Briefcase will resort to all available means to protect the clients’ rights, including initiating regulatory checks into the exchange’s activities in various jurisdictions, up to litigation.

A Binance spokesperson confirmed to ForkLog the authenticity of the letter.

“We have established that some user accounts are linked to sanctioned Suex addresses. In response to OFAC’s decision, Binance is investigating the exchange,” he added.

ForkLog will continue to monitor developments. If you are a Binance user and your account has also been blocked over an alleged link to the Suex exchange, write to the editorial email newsroom (@) forklog.com.

As a reminder, on 21 September the U.S. Treasury added the legal entity and the Suex exchange site to the sanctions list, along with 25 addresses associated with it on the Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether networks.

The agency says that, through the platform, funds of operators of at least eight ransomware programs, scam projects, darknet marketplaces, and the now-defunct BTC-e exchange passed through.

Analytical firm Chainalysis found that, among other things, Suex processed transactions of the WEX exchange worth several million dollars.

Assets linked to cybercriminals accounted for up to 40% of Suex’s turnover, analysts who participated in the investigation calculated.

The United States imposed sanctions on the Bitcoin exchange Suex with offices in Moscow and Saint Petersburg

Позже Binance отчиталась, что удалила несколько учетных записей, связанных с адресами Suex, в соответствии с внутренними мерами безопасности.

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