On March 29, security forces searched the office of the Beribit cryptocurrency exchange, located in Moscow City, on the 52nd floor of the Federation Tower. This is reported by the Telegram channel Shot.
To get inside, law enforcement officers had to break down the door. At the time of writing, the Beribit website is not working.
Data: Telegram channel Shot.As a result, equipment was seized from the exchange's office, the Telegram channel Brief reports. He also cites a comment from Beribit representatives:
"We want to assure all our customers and partners that our users' funds and data are completely safe, and no violations or grounds for sanctions against our platform were found during the audit."
They added that they have always adhered to "high standards of transparency, security and regulatory compliance," and "such checks are part of regular activities in the financial industry."
According to SHOT, searches are also taking place in the offices of a number of other cryptocurrency companies, in particular ABCeX.
"Representatives of the crypto exchanges tried to withdraw the crypt, but the operations were blocked," the channel said in a statement.
The Garantex exchange said that their office is working as usual.
In a comment to ForkLog, Anton Shkurenko, technical consultant of the SmartSwap project, noted that any centralized platform actually acts as an intermediary for the transfer of funds, therefore it must comply with banking regulations regarding customer identification.
"All centralized platforms will eventually be subject to the same rules as banking institutions. This area may even come under the control of banks. Only decentralization can prevent this process," he added.
Earlier, the media learned about the investigation of the United States and Great Britain against Garantex for circumvention of sanctions. The authorities are studying USDT transfers through the platform in the amount of $20 billion.