Binance help British Police stop $50 million fraud campaign

Crypto exchange Binance worked with the UK’s Metropolitan Police earlier this year, to stop a $50 million fraud campaign, it announced Thursday.

A Bulgarian suspect had created and then sold phishing scripts, with which hackers targeted customers of 53 services, extracting over $50 million. Hackers used the scripts to glean personal information about victims, which was allegedly later sold on the dark web.

The Cyber Crime Unit of the Metropolitan Police extradited the suspect from Bulgaria to charge him at Southwark Crown Court in central London. The suspect pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud. He has been jailed for nine years.

Binance didn’t say how it helped the police, but presumably some of the stolen funds landed on the exchange.

Crypto exchanges often cooperate with the police over stolen funds, lawyer Marc Jones of Stewarts Law in London told Decrypt last week.

In the UK, courts ask exchanges to temporarily freeze funds suspected to be held by hackers, he added. But exchanges can only legally hold funds for so long—the crypto does belong to someone else after all.