Binance helped identify members of a group laundering money for the Clop and Petya operators

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance confirmed its involvement in a Ukrainian law-enforcement operation to identify individuals linked to the Clop and Petya ransomware operators.

Here’s how #Binance and international law enforcement were able to take down a $500 million cybercrime ring. https://t.co/V7YeYFzGeh

— Binance (@binance) June 24, 2021

Binance’s statement describes a cybercrime group called FANCYCAT, which runs a ‘high-risk exchange’ and launders funds obtained from darknet operations and the Clop and Petya ransomware attacks.

The losses from FANCYCAT’s actions were estimated at more than $500 million linked to ransomware operations, and a further several million dollars from other cybercrimes.

During the investigation into FANCYCAT’s activities, Binance’s specialized software detected suspicious activity on the platform. In cooperation with TRM Labs and Bitfury Group’s Crystal service, analysts tracked and analyzed the group’s activity.

“We found that it is connected not only with laundering funds from the Clop attack, but also with funds obtained from Petya attacks and other illicit sources”.

The analysis helped identify the members of FANCYCAT, Binance said.

Earlier last week, Ukrainian law enforcement reported on the identification of the hackers behind the Clop ransomware.

ForkLog sources said that the searches targeted not the hackers themselves, but OTC traders through which the ransomware operators’ bitcoins passed.

At the same time, ForkLog learned that Binance may have supplied the personal data of those involved in the investigation to Ukrainian law enforcement, on which they conducted their trades.

Although Ukraine’s cyberpolice said they had disrupted the Clop hacker infrastructure, the criminals behind Clop later published a batch of data allegedly obtained from breaches of two new victims.

Binance already cooperated with Ukrainian law enforcement — in 2020 the exchange helped track down suspects involved in laundering $42 million.

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