How crypto giant Binance built ties to a Russian FSB-linked agency

moneycontrol.com:

In April 2021, Russia's financial intelligence unit met in Moscow with the regional head of Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. The Russians wanted Binance to agree to hand over client data, including names and addresses, to help them fight crime, according to text messages the company official sent to a business associate.

At the time, the agency, known as Rosfinmonitoring or Rosfin, was seeking to trace millions of dollars in bitcoin raised by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a person familiar with the matter said. Navalny, whose network Rosfinmonitoring added that month to a list of terrorist organisations, said the donations were used to finance efforts to expose corruption inside President Vladimir Putin's government

Binance's head of Eastern Europe and Russia, Gleb Kostarev, consented to Rosfin's request to agree to share client data, the messages showed. He told the business associate that he didn't have "much of a choice" in the matter.

Kostarev didn't comment for this article. Binance told Reuters it had never been contacted by Russian authorities regarding Navalny. It said that before the war it was "actively seeking compliance in Russia," which would have required it to respond to "appropriate requests from regulators and law enforcement agencies."

The encounter, which has not been previously reported, was part of behind-the-scenes efforts by Binance to build ties with Russian government agencies as it sought to boost its growing business in the country, Reuters reporting shows. This account of those efforts is based on interviews with over 10 people familiar with Binance's operations in Russia, including former employees, ex-business partners and crypto industry executives, and a review