The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange says intelligence discovered by its investigations team led to the arrest of senior members of Islamic State of Khorasan Province, or ISKP, a branch of the terror network ISIS, in Tajikistan and Turkey.
According to Binance, the company worked with crypto forensics firm TRM and the National Bank of Tajikistan to identify and help take down the network.
In an interview with Fortune, Binance’s head of financial crime compliance, Tigran Gambaryan, said the investigation involved monitoring a Telegram channel popular with ISIS members and then locating the crypto wallet address used by a terrorist leader to receive donations.
Fortune could not independently confirm the arrests, but Binance pointed to a recent report in Turkish state media about the arrest of a high-ranking member of ISKP. In a statement, the company also cited a Tajikistani official, who credited the company’s help in the arrest.
“This led to successful arrests of key ISKP members that we’ve been targeting for a while now. We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with industry players within crypto, including Binance, to combat criminal activities and build a safer cybersecurity space in the region,” said an official from the financial monitoring department under the National Bank of Tajikistan.
The news comes at a time when Binance has become more active in working with law enforcement to trace crypto funds linked to organized crime. In 2021, the firm hired Gambaryan, a former IRS special agent who’s well known for being among the first members of U.S. law enforcement to investigate crypto-related crimes.
Gambaryan has built out a team of investigative specialists at Binance who work with governments around the world. He says this work involves monitoring transactions tied to Binance’s huge exchange, but also watching Telegram and other social media sites for crypto-related chatter among potential criminals.
Gambaryan declined to provide details on which cryptocurrency the ISKP terrorists were reportedly using, but he said it was not Monero, a privacy-focused coin whose anonymity features have been a source of concern for law enforcement. Another person familiar with the investigation pointed Fortune to a report by TRM that notes the stablecoin Tether is popular with terrorists, who often move it around on the Tron blockchain.
More broadly, Binance says its investigations team has responded to over 47,000 law enforcement requests in the past year, including those related to nation-state hacking, child abuse, and terrorism. The company says it averages three days in responding to such requests, a time Binance says is faster than any traditional financial institution.
