According to a confidential letter of the German federal police, two men who used the famous cryptocurrency exchange Binance are accused of assisting an Islamist attacker who killed four people in Vienna in 2020.
Vienna attack suspects used Binance
According to the March 2021 letter, seen by Reuters, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said there were indications that the suspects acquired or sold an unknown quantity of cryptocurrency on Binance.
Drilon G. and Blinor S. are the two suspects, according to prosecutors, the former is a German national and the latter is from Kosova. Their full names have been also withheld by the news agency.
According to the BKA, Blinor S. made “several” transactions using his Binance account. On Drilon G.’s phone, it was discovered that a Binance verification code from February had been used.
The BKA did not provide specifics regarding the dates or value of the transactions. Binance was asked to provide data on the pair, including all digital currency transactions.
Binance has not responded to the letter as of yet according to Reuters.
In messages obtained by Reuters, Blinor S. and Drilon G. denied assisting Kujtim Féjzulai and financing his or any other assault with cryptocurrencies. According to Blinor S., he opened a Binance account in February and only invested in various cryptocurrencies. He said: “I know that every transaction on Binance is traceable.”
Both men have not been charged with a crime and no arrest warrants have been issued, their attorneys said.
Binance has been under attack by a number of financial authorities around the world since last year. Regulators in Europe, the United States, and Asia have urged tighter compliance restrictions on crypto exchanges to prevent money laundering and other illicit activities.
What happened in Vienna?
Fejzulai, a 20-year-old Austrian with North Macedonian citizenship, was shot dead by cops minutes after he began firing on packed bars in Vienna on November 2, 2020.
He had fired numerous shots in six locations near Vienna’s main synagogue with a machine gun, a handgun, and a machete. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the assault.
According to a public statement made by Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor General in July 2018, Drilon G. and Blinor S. were being investigated for allegedly knowing about the assaults ahead of time and failing to notify the police. The two men’s homes in Kassel and Osnabrueck were searched by special forces.
The prosecutor’s office, which described the men as “suspected accomplices in the assault,” didn’t tell anything about cryptocurrencies or Binance.
The two had been in frequent contact with Fejzulai on social media before the incidents, according to the prosecutors’ statement, and they had stayed at his Vienna apartment in July 2020 along with Austrian and Swiss Islamists.
DNA from unidentified individuals present at the Vienna meetings was subsequently discovered on Fejzulai’s weapons and an Islamic State ring he wore during the assault, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Drilon G. and Blinor S. deleted communications with Fejzulai from their mobile phones and social media profiles just before Fejzulai began his assault on the evening of November 2, according to the report.
