Binance Boss sanctioned by Russia

BJ Kang, who was hired by Binance in October 2022 as head of the investigations, is now on a list of 500 people sanctioned by Russia, released on Friday (19).

Kang is a former FBI agent known as “The Most Feared Man on Wall Street”. Prior to joining Binance, he was one of two agents who entered Bernie Madoff’s apartment in 2008 to arrest him for creating the world’s largest financial pyramid.

In addition to Madoff, Kang also participated in other memorable arrests such as those of Steve Cohen and Raj Rajaratnam, which drew some strong comments about his personality.

Russia Sanctions Binance Investigations Chief

The history between Binance and Russia goes way back. As late as 2020, the brokerage website was banned in the country led by Vladimir Putin, but Russians continued to use the platform.

As early as 2022, after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it was Binance’s turn to deny users access to Russia at the request of the European Union. In early 2023, several users complained about account blocking.

In a note published on Friday (19), Russia placed BJ Kang, head of research at Binance, on a list of sanctioned individuals. However, the sanction appears to have nothing to do with Binance or cryptocurrencies as Kang is only referred to as a “FBI special agent”.

None other than Kang seems to have a direct connection to the cryptocurrency market, reinforcing the contention that the targets of sanctions are only US government officials. Another prominent name is Michael Barr, Vice President of the Fed.

Finally, the US is also after Russians. In a recently posted statement, the US Justice Department has offered a R$50 million reward to anyone who provides information about a Russian hacker behind multiple ransomware attacks.