Binance pushes back against report exchange supplied customer data to Russian government

cointelegraph.com:

Major crypto exchange Binance challenged the accuracy of a report that one of its regional heads agreed to supply Russia's financial intelligence unit with customer data potentially related to donations for anti-corruption and anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny.

Reuters reported on Friday that Binance's head of Eastern Europe and Russia Gleb Kostarev met with officials from Russia's Rosfinmonitoring, a financial monitoring service and linked to the country's Federal Security Service, or FSB, in April 2021. Kostarev reportedly agreed to a request from the government body to turn over certain user data — including names and addresses — later telling an associate he didn't have "much of a choice" in the matter. However, another unnamed crypto exchange reportedly did not agree to provide client data to Rosfinmonitoring over concerns how the information might have been used as well as the unit's ties to the FSB.

The Rosfinmonitoring may have been attempting to obtain information from users donating Bitcoin (BTC) to Navalny, who is currently imprisoned in Russia after being found guilty of contempt of court and embezzlement in March. Many human rights groups including Amnesty International have alleged the charges were politically motivated, as Navalny has directly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for corruption as well as accused the head of state of being responsible for poisoning him in August 2020.

However, in a Friday blog post, Binance hinted that the report was portraying a "false narrative" that provided "just enough balance possible to try to avoid a legal complaint." The firm said it was "categorically false" that it shared user data "Russian FSB controlled agencies and Russian regulators," and had stopped