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2 Minute Read by (Source: Reuters) On Friday, Thailand’s financial watchdog filed a criminal complaint against cryptocurrency exchange Binance for operating a digital asset business without a license, the latest in a series of regulatory crackdowns on the site. This picture, taken on June 28, 2021, shows the Binance logo and stock graph. REUTERS/Illustration/Files/Dado Ruvic Binance had been running a digital asset company “in the category of a digital asset exchange” without a license, according to Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Only licensed organizations are allowed to provide services linked to digital asset trading in Thailand, according to the SEC. The Commission had written to Binance in April, warning it about its operations, but had gotten no answer, prompting it to file a criminal complaint with Thai authorities, it added. A Binance spokesman declined to comment on the Thai complaint, but said the company works together with regulators and takes its compliance commitments seriously. The business, one of the world’s largest exchanges, was forbidden from conducting regulated activities in the country by Britain’s financial watchdog last week. Last week, Japan’s authority said Binance was operating illegally in the country, while Germany’s government warned in April that it risked being penalized for offering tokens tied to equities. Binance was under investigation by the US Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service, according to Bloomberg in May. According to the SEC, the complaint filed in Thailand represents the start of a criminal procedure, with a police investigation possibly leading to a recommendation to a public attorney with prosecutorial jurisdiction. It said that the offence involves a sentence of two to five years in prison, a fine of 200,000-500,000 baht ($6,200-15,500), and a daily fee of up to 10,000 baht for each day the violation persists. According to data from CryptoCompare, trading volumes on the exchange were $662 billion in June, up than tenfold from July 2020. Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru and Tom Wilson in London contributed reporting; Arun Koyyur and Jan Harvey edited the piece./nRead More

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