Two employees of the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance were detained in the United Arab Emirates in recent weeks, amid police inquiries into possible financial crimes on the platform, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
The detentions were an unusually aggressive step and are an indication that Binance has faced serious legal pressure in the Emirates, which is the home of the company’s main regulator. Binance has at times struggled to stop criminals from using its platform, where people can convert traditional currencies into digital coins, and has faced scrutiny from law enforcement agencies worldwide.
The two Binance employees were stopped at airports in the Emirates, said two of the people with knowledge of the situation, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive legal issue. One of the employees was a midlevel staff member who was traveling through the Emirati city of Sharjah this month when he was stopped, taken to a police station and held overnight, the people said. A third Binance official, a leader of the company’s Dubai-based subsidiary, was questioned at a police station in July.
Customers can use Binance to quickly move money across borders, which has sometimes made the exchange a helpful conduit for bad actors. Every year, the company receives tens of thousands of inquiries from law enforcement agents investigating funds that move through the exchange.