Binance seizes assets of Palestinians at the request of Israel

[DireWolfM14]

The CEO of noonesapp, Ray Youssef alleges that Binance.com has seized the assets of all Palestinians living in Palestine.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-seize-funds-palestine-israel

He cites this letter which was disclosed by Binance:



Translation:

In accordance with the authority delegated to me by the Minister of Defense, according to Section 61(a) of the Law on Combating Terrorism, 556-
2016 (hereinafter: "The Law on the Fight against Terrorism") and further to your application as a reference, I would like to inform you that your claims against
Seizure of property by virtue of an administrative seizure order (T56/23) signed by the Minister of Defense on November 1, 2023
By virtue of his authority according to the law, were examined by and rejected for the following reasons:
1. Section 56(b) of the Anti-Terrorism Law states, among other things, that the Minister of Defense may issue an order on
Temporary seizure of property of a declared terrorist organization, as well as seizure of property that was used to commit a crime
Serious terrorism or property where a serious terrorist offense was committed.
2. At the basis of the administrative seizure order (Tt56/23) is reliable intelligence information that teaches that wallets
of cryptocurrencies, including one that is registered in your name, funds have been transferred by an organization
The declared terrorism of the Dubai Exchange Company in the Gaza Strip (declared on March 7, 2022, published in the
10084 p. 2505 on 4.4.2022 (.
3. According to the anti-terrorism law, cryptographic currencies that have been transferred by a declared terrorist organization
constitute property of a declared terrorist organization and cryptocurrency wallets to which it has been transferred
Said property constitutes property that was directly used to commit a serious terrorist offense of providing a service or
Establishing measures for a terrorist organization, as defined in the Law on Combating Terrorism, and therefore in accordance with the instructions
The law allows the Minister of Defense to order their seizure by administrative order in preparation for their confiscation.
4. In light of the above, and if nothing is found in your claims to contradict the information that formed the basis of issuing an order
The seizure, I intend to recommend to the Minister of Defense to order the confiscation of the property for which the seizure order was issued,
In accordance with the authority of the Minister of Defense according to section 66(a) of the law.
5. According to the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Law, an appeal against this decision will be submitted as a petition to the Court of Matters
administrative.

Binance CEO has denied the allegations, and claims only a select few accounts were seized.
https://cryptobriefing.com/binance-palestine-wallet-freeze-allegations/


According to the site below, Binance's customers have withdrawn nearly 50k bitcoin in the last few days.
https://www.coinglass.com/Balance

Most of the developments in this story seem to coming from social media sites, as main stream media has yet to report.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23binance&src=typed_query

[CheapYoutubeHits]

Fuck binance,

[tainted_love]

Fuck Israel and fuck binance.

But fuck Israel more.

[aoluain]

Is anyone really surprised by this?

I mean Israel's influence spreads wide and I still dont understand how firstly Binance
couldnt 'politely' refuse anything the Israeli government requests and secondly why
countries are not stepping up and sanctioning Israel over the continuing shameful
occupation and blockade of Gaza.

[fuguebtc]

This is just Fuds aimed at Binance without any evidence and soon after, Binance CEO Richard Teng also quickly spoke up about this issue. According to him, they only restricted some accounts related to illegal money, they did not freeze all users in Palestine as Fuds is spreading. The funny thing is that no one took the time to figure out what happened and rushed to blame Binance. It's like they're just waiting for some centralized exchange to screw up so they can start venting their rage.
I don't know what this has to do with the Israel-Palestine war but Binance is only following the law if what Richard Teng says is true.



https://x.com/_RichardTeng/status/1828688000894787800

[tainted_love]

https://x.com/_RichardTeng/status/1828688000894787800

What would you expect, exactly?  You think he's going to come out and say Yes we seized the little guy's money because we're on league with the Zionist Terror State?

And his excuse is laughable.  Please explain to me (an American who's money is being squandered) how Israel isn't a money laundering operation.

[darkangel11]

This is just Fuds aimed at Binance without any evidence and soon after, Binance CEO Richard Teng also quickly spoke up about this issue.

He seems to downplay this by a lot. Says that some accounts were blocked from transacting. Does that mean funds are available for withdrawal or were they seized?
There's a big difference between the two, because a compliant exchange has all the right to issue warnings, ask users to withdraw and stop using the exchange, block them from trading and so on, but they should not take user's funds. If they really blocked accounts from trading and that's all, fine, the news is FUD aimed at Binance, but if he said they were blocked from trading, but really also from withdrawing, the CEO is lying and you guys should take your money out of there.

[franky1]

This is just Fuds aimed at Binance without any evidence and soon after, Binance CEO Richard Teng also quickly spoke up about this issue.

He seems to downplay this by a lot. Says that some accounts were blocked from transacting. Does that mean funds are available for withdrawal or were they seized?
There's a big difference between the two, because a compliant exchange has all the right to issue warnings, ask users to withdraw and stop using the exchange, block them from trading and so on, but they should not take user's funds. If they really blocked accounts from trading and that's all, fine, the news is FUD aimed at Binance, but if he said they were blocked from trading, but really also from withdrawing, the CEO is lying and you guys should take your money out of there.

you are absolutely correct
unless the suspicion of activity reaches a threshold of money laundering/terrorism the most a service can do is stop access to internal features(for its own private business reasons(normally found in T&C)) and only offer a withdrawal to then ban the account when balance is removed.

however this is the FUD part.
the title of this topic makes the thin suggestion that all palestinians funds are seized and done so for no reason but racism.. however as the letter says(linked a few posts back) only those linked to a criminal/terrorist organisation have funds seized. and its only a few accounts.. there was no blanket seizure for a whole genotype/demograph/population

general advice for all:
but with that said, if you are currently living/working/touring in a warzone area, it might be best to remove funds from centralised services and only use services for their immediate conversion/purchase/sell, and not to use it as a 'bank'/custodian. you might be innocent of a crime, but your neighbours or real world services or anyone linked to warzone area's activities that use coin, may have mixed criminal used coins with theirs when servicing you, thus you may end up with mixed dirty coin which might get you investigated, so be careful

[pooya87]

the title of this topic makes the thin suggestion that all palestinians funds are seized and done so for no reason but racism.. however as the letter says(linked a few posts back) only those linked to a criminal/terrorist organisation have funds seized. and its only a few accounts.. there was no blanket seizure for a whole genotype/demograph/population

I don't know what the scale of this theft is and what percentage of the Palestinian people who were using Binance were affected. But what I know is that whenever these centralized services pull off something like that, they will never tell you that "they shut down accounts of the victims because the Israeli terrorists who are committing genocide in Palestine ordered them to do so".
They will have to make a statement that makes their illegal actions look legitimate, like saying those were the "bad guys".

This is not the first time they do something like this and Palestinians are not the first victims of such actions. Bittrex did it to a lot of people from a dozen countries (me included) back when it was as big as Binance. They cited US sanctions as the reason which is now against like 50 countries! and stole more than half a bitcoin from me personally.

Even Github did the same by shutting down numerous accounts back in 2019 with Trump's orders. Their reason was the stupidest of all:

GitHub.com may not be used for purposes prohibited under applicable export control laws, including purposes related to the development, production, or use of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons or long range missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles.

[franky1]

binance says its only a few accounts so its not a broad stroke against a country, but a target on organised crime links

secondly its a known agenda and common sense that when those criminals have an accountant/treasurer/fund manager(organised criminals have these) that had the coin and that guy invested it, but then the money just cant be accessed. the criminal would want to put a hit on the accountant in the mindset that the accountant/treasurer stole it. so its that accountant/treasurer that will want to publish FUD that a bank/service wrongly took the funds without warning.

this can be for many reasons, it can be because:
the treasurer failed to use VPN, proxy addresses, fake ID to detach the funds to criminal activity to avoid services legally seizing funds
by having public media/social media talk about services taking funds with no reason, so then its media based evidence a treasurer/accountant can use to avoid trouble
the treasurer did steal the funds but then seen a service seize funds so wants to say 'the service took it, not me, boss"

after all if you had a criminal that trusted funds with you, and you put them into a service and you didnt do everything possible to evade the red flags, you will get funds seized. and your criminal associate will be looking at you for the funds, as they trusted you, so if you dont want to lose your hands, you need to prove you didnt steal it, by producing/inventing evidence that it was some other service that took it without warning might save your hands from the chopping block

[IngerlamandetS]

It turns out to be nonsense

[o48o]

https://x.com/_RichardTeng/status/1828688000894787800

What would you expect, exactly?  You think he's going to come out and say Yes we seized the little guy's money because we're on league with the Zionist Terror State?

And his excuse is laughable.  Please explain to me (an American who's money is being squandered) how Israel isn't a money laundering operation.

Ok, i would like to hear more facts about this, and what part of this is laughable? Isreal have stepped up to fight money laundering for over 5 years now, and without any proof i wouldn't make assumptions.
Sure, Israel definitely could use their influence just by actually being part of FATF, but that just means that they are accountable for their actions and have to provide proof as well. They can't perform such actions by saying "trust me bro". So tell me your opinion about those few accounts that were closed. What would they benefit of closing some random accounts. What they were for in your opinion?

And since you are throwing in sentences like Israel is a money laundering operation, maybe throw some facts, that your argument would have any substance.

FATF monitors their members and do transparent reports about progress of their members. These take time and they might not be up to date, but countries rarely risk their membership for closing few accounts, because there are ton of benefits being part of it.

As a disclaimer, i don't support israel, but i at least want accusations to be accurate.

[DeathAngel]

All this reminds me is not your keys, not your coins. If any regular, law abiding Palestinian had their funds frozen then I feel bad for them. However, you should not leave yourself open to a third party wallet provider or exchange being in control of your coins. Self custody is the only way to be safe in this game.

[tainted_love]

And since you are throwing in sentences like Israel is a money laundering operation, maybe throw some facts, that your argument would have any substance.

I'm going to assume you're just miss informed and missing the big picture. I'm not talking about peanuts here, I'm referring to the entire peanut farm.  

Ever heard of AIPAC? Do you know what they do? They are the only foreign lobby that gets to spend unlimited amounts of money on US elections and lobbying. They don't even have to register as a foreign lobby. No other country enjoys that privilege. They have handlers assigned to every member of congress and the senate. They lobby the US to send billions of our tax dollars to Israel, who then uses the money to buy weapons made by companies who's shareholders are those same politicians being lobbied. Israel also uses my tax dollars to fund AIPAC, which then uses the funds to help get Israel-friendly politicians elected. It's just a big money laundering cycle. This isn't even a secret, it's literally something that Netanyahu has openly bragged about. Over 90% of our political system is controlled by a foreign nation, but somehow it's ok because it's just Israel.

This doesn't even take into account the blackmail operations they use to entrap those who won't cooperate. Haven't you wondered why no one who raped children on Epstein's private island has been indicted? It's simple, he and Ghislaine Maxwell were Mossad agents. And they were only one of such honeypot operations, you can rest assured there are more we haven't uncovered yet.

You don't have to take my word for any of it, the information is readily available as long as you don't use google to look for it.

[Tipstar]

As I look into the news, it's just freeze of assets of a limited number of users who are accused of being involved in illicit activities or so Binance says.
The crime and politics are often synonym to each other so its hard to make a comment.
If you really want to be free, avoid centralized services.

[OgNasty]

On one hand, this should terrify anyone with assets on an exchange, crypto or otherwise. On the other hand, countries are now using Bitcoin exchanges to confiscate funds from their enemies and punish them. 10 years ago something like this was unimaginable. So while it is terrifying, it does signal a certain level of progress.

[Zlantann]

As I look into the news, it's just freeze of assets of a limited number of users who are accused of being involved in illicit activities or so Binance says.
The crime and politics are often synonym to each other so its hard to make a comment.
If you really want to be free, avoid centralized services.

Binance is now proving to be under the control of the US. How will the company honour a letter from country without giving the other country a fair hearing to defend such allegations. Would they have frozen accounts owned by Isreali citizen if such accusation emanated from Palistine?

On one hand, this should terrify anyone with assets on an exchange, crypto or otherwise. On the other hand, countries are now using Bitcoin exchanges to confiscate funds from their enemies and punish them. 10 years ago something like this was unimaginable. So while it is terrifying, it does signal a certain level of progress.

This is indeed a wake-up call for anyone who is keeping his funds in these centralized exchanges. We might see more of this ugly event happening in the future since countries are always warring with each other. The claim that the funds in Binance are used to finance terrorism is laughable since all customers from that location cannot be supporters of such crime.

[tvbcof]

On one hand, this should terrify anyone with assets on an exchange, crypto or otherwise. On the other hand, countries are now using Bitcoin exchanges to confiscate funds from their enemies and punish them. 10 years ago something like this was unimaginable. So while it is terrifying, it does signal a certain level of progress.

To me it was closer to inevitable.  IMHO, anyone who keeps more in _any_ custodial account than they can afford to walk away from laughing is a total lazy fool, not cut out for Bitcoin, and deserves whatever they (don't) get.  Doing so defeats the whole point of Bitcoin!

[Hispo]

On one hand, this should terrify anyone with assets on an exchange, crypto or otherwise. On the other hand, countries are now using Bitcoin exchanges to confiscate funds from their enemies and punish them. 10 years ago something like this was unimaginable. So while it is terrifying, it does signal a certain level of progress.

Signals Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have become valuable and liquid enough for organizations and countries to pursue to punish their adversaries by seizing them from their control. That is the only progress I can think of when comes to this situation.

In this particular case of Palestine and the Palestinian people, and their relationship with Binance, if I was the CEO of such an important cryptocurrency exchange, I would have disclosed the situation from the beginning, so it looked less shady in the eyes of the general public, as if Binance is being forced to seize anything which is under the power of Palestine civilians, it could have saved some face for them and reduced FUD.

The logical step to follow by the Bitcoin community and anyone with enough sense of decentralization should be to withdraw all their assets from Binance, as a form of protest, though Binance had become such an important source of liquidity for the market that it could be too big to fail at this point. It depends whom you ask, as well.

[Marseliesa]

Probably it was for something, they just won't.