Binance confirms freezing $1M corporate account

• Binance said it had frozen the account in response to a law enforcement request.
• Baking Bad claims it’s been unable to contact the said law enforcement and doubts if there’s such a request.

Binance has responded to accusations of freezing a major client’s account, with $1 million in it, by stating that the action followed a law enforcement request.

On Thursday, Tezos tool contributor Baking Bad tweeted that Binance has “blocked” their corporate account since 1 July without offering any explanations. The exchange had also gone ahead to set the account’s balances to zero, according to @TezosBakingBad.

“We have all the materials to begin the investigation and inform the community,” they noted.

Binance has refuted the claims, noting via statement posted on the exchange’s official Twitter account:

“The account in question was restricted as the result of a law enforcement request, which @TezosBakingBad is well aware of, as he was already advised of this multiple times and provided the LE contact form through our support chat system on 7/6, 7/12, and 7/22,”

No response raised doubts about the account freeze

Baking Bad acknowledges the contact made with Binance’s support, saying they had indeed “sent about five requests” using the law enforcement form provided. However, they hadn’t received any response, even as the stated deadline fast approaches, and believe no such request to Binance to freeze the account was made.

We haven’t received any details about the LA request, even some reference number/letter date. We haven’t received any response from the LA either thus we are making a conclusion that there’s likely no such request.

— Baking Bad (@TezosBakingBad) August 25, 2022

But noting it has nothing to do with the lack of contact or seizure of funds, Binance said what it has done with regard to the matter is “cooperate… the same as any other exchange” [would].

Asking Baking Bad not to mislead the community and that doing so wouldn’t change anything, Binance added:

“There is a process to contest the seizure with the agency should you wish to pursue that path. But that is done through the agency, Binance has zero control over that process.”

Neither Binance nor Baking Bad have disclosed the law enforcement in question, but there is reference to an EU entity and Binance EU.