Peru freezes US$142.756 and S/12.378 in Binance and Bybit crypto assets in money laundering probe

Peru’s Public Prosecutor has secured the seizure of US$142.756 and S/12.378 held as virtual assets on Binance and Bybit, in an investigation into alleged money laundering tied to international financial fraud. For PSPs, exchanges, and banks touching crypto flows, the point is simple: the on-chain/off-platform split does not stop prosecutors from asking a court to immobilize funds before they move.

1. The seizure was obtained by the Second Supraprovincial Corporate Prosecutor’s Office Specialized in Money Laundering Crimes, through its Sixth Office led by provincial prosecutor Pablo César Espinoza Vásquez. The court order is meant to prevent the assets from being transferred, converted, exchanged, or withdrawn while the investigation continues.
2. According to the prosecutor’s office, the funds are linked to the reception, conversion, and transfer of cryptoassets allegedly derived from international financial fraud. The amounts covered include both U.S. dollar balances and amounts in local currency identified during the investigation.
3. The alleged mechanism involved digital wallets, stablecoins, and P2P (peer-to-peer) transactions, which allow direct transfers between users without bank intermediation. In the prosecutor’s framing, that structure was used to make the source of the funds harder to identify and trace.
4. The Public Ministry said the seizure is part of a broader investigation into newer forms of alleged money laundering through cryptocurrencies, with a focus on financial traceability and the recovery of assets of possible illicit origin.

For high-risk payment businesses, the operational takeaway is not subtle: where investigators can identify wallet flows and tie them to alleged fraud, exchange balances and other crypto holdings can be frozen before anyone gets a chance to move them.