Binance reportedly handed Russian authorities a EU-based client’s passport and transfer history as a Ukrainian donations case moves to court in Moscow

Moscow is sending the case of IT specialist Yuri Belenky to court after Binance reportedly provided investigators with detailed account data, including passport scans, KYC photos, login history, and transfer records. For high-risk PSPs, the point is simple: when an exchange holds enough identity and transaction data, a single legal request can turn an old user account into criminal evidence.

1. According to the source text, Belenky lived in Bulgaria from 2015 but regularly traveled to Russia. In September 2025, he was detained at Sheremetyevo airport and arrested for petty hooliganism, then detained again on a terrorism financing allegation.
2. He is accused of six transfers totaling 742.26 USDT, or about 62,000 rubles, for the benefit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and “Azov.” The wallet address that received the funds was published by journalist Arkady Babchenko.
3. In October 2025, the Investigative Committee sent a request to Binance, citing criminal cases under the terrorism article and asking for information on six users who had transferred funds to the wallet published by Babchenko. The materials on all six users, including Belenky, were then separated into individual criminal cases.
4. The Binance response described in the source included the full account history from registration onward: personal data, scans of a Russian passport and Bulgarian residence permit, photos taken during KYC, balances, deposits and withdrawals, P2P transactions, and login data, including geolocation and devices. The investigators also used that material to identify additional transfers, and Belenky is now accused of 15 transfers totaling 1680,69 USDT, or about 140,000 rubles.
5. The source says Belenky was registered with Binance under a Russian passport before 2022 and later appeared as a European client. That is the uncomfortable bit for compliance teams: the same account can move jurisdictions on paper, while the historical file stays intact.

Binance’s position, as relayed in the text, is that it does not accept legal requests by email and does not provide law enforcement with user-account information without a court order or another judicial act. The same text also notes that in late 2022 Russian State Duma figures said foreign crypto exchanges were actively cooperating with Russian law enforcement, while sanctioned Russian exchange Garantex did not disappear and instead shifted into a decentralized network operating under brands such as Exved, MKAN Coin, and Grinex.

For Binance users in Russia, the current setup in the source is clear: new users cannot register, and ruble operations are restricted for existing users.