Binance Hires Former IRS Agent who Led Investigations in Silk Road and the Mt. Gox Hack

Binance onboarded Tigran Gambaryan as its vice president of global intelligence and investigations to strengthen its compliance, which he said is the “first line of defense.”

As the leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance focuses on regulatory compliance, it hired a former US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) special agent, Tigran Gambaryan, to join its team as vice president of global intelligence and investigations.

Gambaryan led some of the most high-profile investigations in the digital asset world at the IRS, including the Silk Road website and the Mt. Gox hack.

Binance is also onboarding another former IRS special agent, Matthew Price as senior director of investigations. A couple of months back, the exchange had also named Greg Monahan as its global anti-money laundering officer, a former US Treasury enforcement investigator.

“The Binance investigations team now includes the top investigators in the world,” Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao “CZ,” said in the statement.

“This level of experience will make Binance a leader in compliance, enhancing trust in Binance and the cryptocurrency ecosystem as a whole.”

Gambaryan spent a decade at the IRS-Criminal Investigations Cyber Crimes Unit, investigating cases involving terrorism financing, national security, tax evasion, bank secrecy act violations, and identity theft.

He also led the investigation of bad actors exploiting crypto for illicit purposes, such as Helix, which was a successful prosecution of an illicit Bitcoin tumbling service operating on the darknet.

“Compliance is the first line of defense,” Gambaryan said in the statement.

“Our goal is to increase trust in cryptocurrency by establishing Binance as the leading contributor in the fight against human trafficking, ransomware, and terrorism financing.”