(Bloomberg) — Binance Holdings Ltd. has shuttered several accounts linked to relatives of senior Kremlin officials amid a wave of international sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume said Polina Kovaleva, the stepdaughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Elizaveta Peskova, the daughter of President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, were among those blocked over the past two months.
Binance said it also banned Kirill Malofeev, the son of Konstantin Malofeev, a tycoon accused by the U.S. Treasury Department of being a key source of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea.
The exchange is continuing its checks to look for more people associated with sanctioned individuals who may be using its services, according to Chagri Poyraz, the firm’s Vancouver-based global head of sanctions.
“What’s different is that our compliance screen operations are ‘proactive,’ aiming to detect and deter financial crime risk before any regulatory or legal action towards these individuals or entities,” he said.
Read more: Russia’s $124 Billion Crypto Market Pinched by Ukraine Sanctions
Poyraz, a former compliance officer at HSBC Holdings Plc, said Binance blocked the virtual currency exchange Garantex on March 11, several weeks before the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control targeted the entity.
Binance said it blocked Peskova on March 3, when she tried to use the exchange through a third-party brokerage. She was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department the following week.
The company shuttered the account of Kovaleva on March 24, the same day she was sanctioned by the U.K. Malofeev, who was designated by the U.S. Treasury on April 20, had his Binance accounts blocked this week, the company said.
Peskova, Kovaleva and Malofeev didn’t immediately respond to written requests for comment.
Last week, Binance said it is limiting services in Russia, one of its biggest markets globally, following the European Union’s latest sanctions on Moscow.
The crackdown has earned Binance plaudits from industry experts worried about potential sanctions evasion through crypto. But it has also drawn a backlash from some who say the restrictions have gone too far.
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