Legal
The U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant ruled that there was no evidence that Binance Holdings Ltd. aided and abetted the theft. The case involves Divya Gadasalli, who was cheated out of a whopping $8 million by a man she met on the dating app. Gadasalli claimed that the man, who went by the name of “Jerry Bulasa” on Tinder, promised her romance and financial prosperity. However, she eventually lost all her money after the man convinced her to transfer millions of dollars to him. This was all part of the “pig butchering” scheme, whereby scammers spend weeks or months building up a fake relationship with their victims to trick them into sending over funds.
In March 2022, Gadasalli filed a complaint against Binance and several other defendants, including TD Bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank, and the Poloniex exchange, seeking injunctive relief. Initially, Gadasalli argued that Binance was involved as it provided exchange services to the scammer. She claimed that Binance and Binance.US were the same entity and people used VPNs (virtual private networks) to access the exchange. However, Judge Mazzant ruled that the plaintiff “cannot point to a single fact of how Binance is actually involved in this case” and could not demonstrate how the court had jurisdiction over the company.
The judge added that Gadasalli could not prove that any of the fraud occurred in Texas since Binance and Binance.US was barred from operating there. The plaintiff further alleged that BNB was involved in the case and provided exchange services to the scammer. She claimed that Binance.US and Binance were the same entity and that people used VPNs (virtual private networks) to access the exchange. However, none of these claims had any factual basis. The judge ruled that the plaintiff could not demonstrate how the court had jurisdiction over the company.
Although BNB has been dismissed from the lawsuit, it still faces regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. financial market. In late March, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against BNB and CEO Changpeng Zhao over alleged trading violations, market manipulations, and other supposed misdeeds. Furthermore, CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam claimed that exchange executives knowingly operated outside of U.S. commodities laws.
BNB’s Australian arm recently announced that it would be halting Australian dollar withdrawals and deposits via bank transfer due to a decision from its third-party payments provider Cuscal. In a statement, Cuscal hinted at the impact of “scams and fraud” related to “account fraud, ID takeover, and crypto activity.” However, the statement did not reference BNB in any way.
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