Binance Hires Former US Treasury Criminal Investigator

key takeaways

Karen Leong, who previously had the global money laundering reporting officer role, is now Binance’s director of compliance
Monahan’s appointment follows company’s hiring of European director of compliance and advisors covering compliance, regulation, policy and government relations

Binance has brought on a former US Treasury criminal investigator as its global money laundering reporting officer amid the company bolstering its AML detection and analytics capabilities and compliance team.

Greg Monahan was responsible for tax, money laundering and other related financial crime investigations during much of his nearly 30 years working for the government, the crypto company said in a news release.

“Binance has a strong culture of putting their users first, from providing market-leading products to supporting high-profile investigations that help make the crypto industry a safer place,” Monahan said in a statement. “My efforts will be focused on expanding Binance’s international anti-money laundering and investigation programs, as well as strengthening the organization’s relations with regulatory and law enforcement bodies worldwide.”

A Binance spokesperson did not immediately respond to Blockworks’ request for further comment.

Binance Security had taken part in an international investigation with Ukraine Cyber Police, Cyber Bureau of Korean National Police Agency, US law enforcement and those of other countries in apprehending a group known as Fancycat, according to a June Binance blog post. Fancycat is responsible for about $500 million of damages in connection with ransomware and millions more from other cyber crimes.

Binance has expanded its in-house AML detection and analytics capabilities over the past year, according to the blog.

“The biggest security problem in the industry today is money connected to cyber attacks being laundered through nested services and parasite exchanger accounts that live inside macro [virtual asset service providers], including exchanges like Binance.com,” the blog post states. “These criminals enjoy taking advantage of reputable exchanges’ liquidity, diverse digital asset offerings and well-developed [application programming interfaces].”

Monahan replaces Karen Leong, who had held the global money laundering reporting officer title since 2018. She will remain with Binance as its director of compliance.

Binance last month added Jonathan Farnell to its European compliance team from eToro Money UK, where he was director of compliance. The company also brought aboard former Financial Action Task Force executives Rick McDonell and Josée Nadeau as compliance and regulatory advisors and former US senator Max Baucus as policy and government relations advisor earlier this year.

Monahan’s appointment also comes after Joshua Sroge, Binance.US’s CFO, became the interim CEO, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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