Binance accused of helping launder stolen funds from Wex users; CZ freezes their accounts

Changpeang Zhao, the co-founder and CEO of Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange platforms by trading volume, has effectively stopped a scam from taking place. This comes after a cryptocurrency investor, Joseph Young, pointed out an exit scam on his Twitter handle.

The party accused was Maple Change Exchange. On October 28, 2018, Maple Change Exchange was reportedly hacked and claimed to have lost 8 BTC. According to their Twitter profile, funds have been returned to some customers who lost their altcoins. However, customers who lost Bitcoin [BTC] and Litecoin [LTC] were not refunded. Moreover, the official website of the exchange platform was shut down at press time.

They had announced:

“The negative balance was used in order to fully buyout every market the attackers felt like, they were able to sell without limitations and accumulated 15BTC of non-existent funds. Out of which they only managed to withdraw what he had in total – 8BTC.”

This eventually resulted in John James, a cryptocurrency investor, pointing out another cryptocurrency exchange platform exit scam. The exchange platform bought to light was WEX NZ, which provides trading services for coins such as Bitcoin [BTC], Bitcoin Cash [BCH], Litecoin [LTC], Ethereum [ETH], and Monero [XMR].

Moreover, this happens to be the same exchange platform where the price of Bitcoin [BTC] was valued closely to $10,000 in the month of July, when the trading just above the $8,000 mark.

James claimed that the platform is moving funds from their cold wallets through Binance, accusing the biggest exchange platform of helping launder money. He said:

“Also another interesting twist. Wex cold wallets are moving funds through @binance. Meaning Binance is potentially help launder millions of dollars worth of stolens funds from Wex users. We have proof too. @cz_binance”

In addition to this, there were reports claiming that trading services were not functioning properly on the exchange platform earlier this week. This is where the CEO of Binance stepped in and announced that they have frozen Wex’s accounts. He has also stated that this matter should be reported to the law enforcement. CZ said:

“The identified accounts are frozen, please report to law enforcement and have a case number. We will work with LE. This is part of centralization we hate too, dealing with other exchange’s mess (we don’t even know the details). But we will do what we can.”

He further added they would be doing the same through decentralized exchanges. He said:

“Soon, they will go through decentralized exchanges…”