Binance Changed One Rule. Police Say It Could Cost Them the Race Against Crypto Scammers

Binance changed a consequential rule for overseas criminal investigations in April 2025. Most foreign law-enforcement requests for user information now travel through government-to-government channels involving the United Arab Emirates before the exchange responds.

Three categories can still receive a direct response: child sexual abuse material, terrorism, and an imminent threat to life. Binance says the controls have not slowed its cooperation and says its work with law enforcement increased year over year.

Police and prosecutors cited in current reporting argue that the added treaty route can cost investigators critical time as suspected scammers move crypto. That is a reported criticism, not an adjudicated finding that Binance designed the policy to aid criminals or stopped cooperating.

NEW: Investigators in Europe said that the cryptocurrency giant Binance had made it more difficult to track down scammers and solve other crimes.

— Phantom Flow (@getphantomflow) July 28, 2026

According to The New York Times, police officials from five European countries raised the problem at a law-enforcement conference in the Netherlands in June 2026. They described difficulty obtaining Binance information after most requests outside the three exceptions began moving through the UAE’s Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process.

Brooklyn assistant district attorney Alona Katz said the speed of receiving records can determine a case’s outcome. The concern is practical: a useful account trail may arrive after the assets have already been sent through more addresses or converted.

Records, freezes, and seizures are different legal actions, though fast-moving investigations may need all three. Records identify an account and its transaction history; a freeze seeks to stop further movement; a seizure transfers control of assets under legal authority.

The sequence makes delay dangerous without making recovery automatically impossible. If records come late, investigators may lose the chance to identify a reachable balance; if a freeze or seizure order comes late, that balance may no longer be there.

An MLAT is a formal treaty channel for governments to exchange evidence and assistance in criminal cases. Government review can protect private account data, respect jurisdictional limits, and enforce due process, but it generally takes longer than an exchange answering an investigator directly.

That tradeoff becomes sharper in digital-asset cases because the asset and the evidence can move on different tracks. An exchange may still hold account records after coins leave, yet a usable history is not the same as a balance that can be frozen or seized under valid authority.

CoinDesk separately summarized the policy and reported Binance’s response. The exchange said it had not reduced cooperation with global law enforcement, that request volume had increased year over year, and that it continued prioritizing agencies in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

Binance describes the April 2025 change as stronger controls and safeguards of the kind expected from a regulated institution. It also says its assistance exceeds its legal obligations and goes beyond what traditional financial-services firms typically provide.

That defense treats the treaty route as a control over cross-border access, rather than a retreat from anti-crime work. Under that view, investigators still receive assistance, but the requesting government must first pass through a formal jurisdictional process unless an exception applies.

That framing answers the accusation of abandonment, but it leaves the timing question open. A process can be lawful, consistent, and ultimately cooperative while still producing a delay that changes what investigators are able to recover in a fast-moving case.

The outlet also connected the dispute to The Information’s account of a Justice Department memo warning federal prosecutors to prepare for less Binance assistance with freezes and seizures. Binance denied that its cooperation with U.S. authorities had changed, while the Justice Department gave the outlet no immediate response about the reported memo.

The disagreement therefore centers on the real-world effect of an added procedural layer, not on a claim that Binance rejects every request. Current reporting describes complaints and competing accounts; it does not establish a new charge over the policy or a judicial finding against the exchange.

BROOKLYN DISTRICT ATTORNEY: BINANCE WITHOLDS UNITED ARAB EMIRATES USER RECORDS. 👀

Assistant DA said she couldn’t obtain some account records.

Binance now often requires law enforcement to route requests through foreign government agencies.
— NY Times pic.twitter.com/Dzs4sOVtKM

— Bitcoin Archive (@BitcoinArchive) July 28, 2026

In its current Binance Academy account, the company says its legal and compliance teams have processed more than 71,000 law-enforcement requests. Binance also says its work has recovered millions in illicit funds and aided hundreds of arrests.

The exchange says it works directly with agencies in multiple countries to trace illicit flows, preserve evidence, and answer official information requests. It also reports running training programs that help investigators use blockchain data alongside exchange records.

From early 2025 through the first quarter of 2026, Binance says it prevented more than $10.53 billion in potential user losses and protected over 5.4 million users. For the first quarter alone, it says its systems stopped 22.9 million scam and phishing attempts involving about $1.98 billion in user funds.

Those figures are Binance’s own, not independent audit results. They show the scale of the anti-crime operation the exchange says it runs, but they cannot resolve whether the UAE route causes damaging delay in cases that fall outside the exceptions.

The company metrics and the procedural complaint address different questions. One concerns the size and results of Binance’s broader compliance program; the other concerns how quickly a particular foreign agency can obtain records or constrain funds under the revised route.

The policy puts two legitimate needs in direct tension. Cross-border demands for private account data need privacy, jurisdictional, and due-process safeguards, while investigators pursuing movable assets need records and legal restraints before recoverable funds leave their reach.

Binance has offered evidence of extensive cooperation and a defense grounded in institutional controls. Police and prosecutors have raised a narrower, consequential challenge: if the formal channel moves slower than the assets, valid assistance may arrive after the best chance to recover them has passed.

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