Colombians Sue Binance for Blocking Their Funds What’s worse than having money in your account and then suddenly receiving an email saying that you can’t access it because it presumably comes from illicit activities? That is what happened to a group of young Colombians who used to trade crypto in Binance — and they are not too happy about it.
Over five months, a group of Colombian internet users reported to social media that Binance had blocked their accounts because they had received money for illicit activities. Some reported that funds had been taken out of their accounts without authorization.
Binance users have reported being held hostage for over 5 months.
Andrea Torrente was one of those who were affected. Andrea stated in an interview with Criptonoticias Latin American Crypto News Site that 15 days ago she had to use legal channels through her lawyer in order to recover her account which is now blocked. However, he has not received an official response from Binance’s legal representative in Colombia or from the relevant authorities. She also stated that accounts that were not blocked by the FIOD are the ones that did not receive a blocking notice from them. ” In theory this week marks the deadline by which Binance’s legal representative for Colombia and other authorities should be notified.” Some users have as much as $1 million in their accounts. One user claimed that he had $1 million or more in his exchange account when it was closed. This made it impossible for him to profit from the Bitcoin rally and realize his gains, and so did many others like Juan Pombo, who had $143,000 blocked, which — as he says — left him “literally bankrupt.” Although not all the affected crypto traders had similar amounts of money stored on the platform, the group is willing to go “to the last consequences” to get justice, even if they have to spend more money on lawyers than they have in their accounts.
The legality of funds can be proved by users.
Contrary to Binance’s claims, affected crypto traders claim they can prove the origin of the funds using their financial statements. So all is not yet lost, and they could actually make some money if they can prove that they lost the opportunity to make a profit due to the platform’s negligence. For instance, Torrente used USDT arbitrage to take advantage of price fluctuations in exchange houses in Cali and Binance.
Some transactions were tied to the Dark Net.
Another particular case is that of César Maya, who was able to verify through the Chainalysis blockchain explorer that he had bought cryptocurrencies from people involved with the Dark Net without being aware of it. Binance blocked his account because he did not make even 1% of his transactions. Maya’s lawyer assured her that the company could not hold his funds, as it is easy to prove good faith in the purchase of her assets. Other users with the same problem also had their accounts unblocked and all funds available. Torrente claims that the Asian giant washed its hands and told users to write to the FIOD, or the Dutch police. This is the entity that issued an order to freeze funds. “You ask them [Binance]The FIOD will issue a freezing order and instruct you to write to a Dutch postal courier. Binance responded almost six months ago. Our chats were shut down by them. They just did not want to talk. They say they have nothing to do with it and tell you to communicate with an email that is never answered.”
