Binance’s Senior Counter-Terrorism Official Jennifer Hicks has left the cryptocurrency exchange, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Hicks departed the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange this month, according to the profile, after working with Binance for nearly two years. The investigative specialist previously worked at Chainalysis and the U.S. Navy. The news of the departure was first reported by Bloomberg.
Cryptocurrency’s role in terrorism financing became a hot topic recently in the U.S., where Hicks appears to have been based while with Binance, after a report alleged that Hamas, along with other militant groups, raised millions worth of crypto ahead of a brutal attack on Israel. U.S. lawmakers have demanded President Joe Biden provide more information on Hamas’s potential use of crypto.
In the days that followed the report, blockchain forensics firm Elliptic said recent figures used to portray the scale of crypto fundraising by terrorist groups had been misrepresented.
Either way, the know-your-customer and counter-terrorism procedures implemented by cryptocurrency exchanges, in particular at Binance, have been a matter of increased interest over the past year as trading platforms have been more heavily scrutinized by regulators, principally in the U.S.
Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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