Binance has been cleared of the $8 million Tinder 'pig slaughtering' case

By: Michael Wilson

May 23, 2023 6:41 AM

The lawsuit, filed by a Texan woman, initially accused Binance of losing $8 million in a Tinder-based pig butchering scam.

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has been dropped from a lawsuit involving an alleged "pig butchering" crypto scam performed on the dating app Tinder.

On May 22, United States District Judge Amos Mazzant found that there was no proof that Binance Holdings Ltd. aided and abetted the theft, which featured a Texas woman reportedly being tricked out of $8 million by a man she met on Tinder.

The petition states that Divya Gadasalli, a Texan woman, lost over $8 million after she was "promised romance and financial prosperity" by a man using the alias "Jerry Bulasa" on Tinder.

Extracted from the case of Gadasalli v. Bulasa, 4:22-cv-00249

Gadasalli alleged Bulasa persuaded her to transfer millions of dollars in what turned out to be a "pig butchering" plan in which the scammer spends weeks or months building up a fictitious rapport with the victim in order to fool them into transferring over monies.

In March 2022, the plaintiff filed→ a complaint seeking injunctive relief against Binance and numerous other defendants, including TD Bank, Abacus Federal Savings Bank, and the Poloniex Exchange.

Gadasalli initially claimed that Binance was involved since it provided the scammer with exchange services.

Binance and Binance.US, she contended. People utilized VPNs (virtual private networks) to access the exchange because the US was the same organization.

Judge Mazzant, on the other hand, concluded that the plaintiff "cannot point to a single fact of how Binance is actually involved in this case" and could not show that the court had jurisdiction over the firm.

The judge also stated that Gadasalli was unable to demonstrate that any of the fraud occurred in Texas since Binance and Binance. The US was prohibited from operating there.

"According to the allegations, the illegally obtained funds will be transferred to cryptocurrency via Binance at some time, although there is no evidence to suggest that Texans had any hand in the alleged thefts."

The result is a little triumph for Binance, which remains in the crosshairs of US financial regulators in the realm of litigation.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of the United States launched a complaint against Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao in late March for trading violations, market manipulations, and other offenses.

Furthermore, CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam said that exchange executives willfully violated US commodity regulations.

Due to a decision by its third-party payments provider Cuscal, Binance's Australian arm recently stated that it would suspend AUD withdrawals and deposits via bank transfer. 

Cuscal alluded the same day in a separate statement about the impact of "scams and fraud" relating to "account fraud, ID takeover, and crypto activity." It made no mention of Binance in its statement.