Over the past two months, Bitcoin exchange Binance has blocked several accounts associated with relatives of senior Kremlin officials. It is reported by Bloomberg.

Restrictions apply to:

• Polina Kovaleva, stepdaughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov;
• Elizaveta Peskova, daughter of President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov;
• Kirill Malofeev, the sanctioned son of businessman Konstantin Malofeev OFAC and, according to the media, associated with the theft of bitcoin from the WEX exchange.

A Binance representative revealed that Peskova’s account was blocked on March 3 when she was trying to use the exchange through a third-party broker. The following week, it came under US Treasury sanctions.

Kovaleva’s account was shut down on March 24, the day it was approved by the UK. Malofeev, which was listed by the US Treasury Department on April 20, was blocked by Binance accounts this week, the company said.

Exchange representatives also said they will continue to look for users associated with people from the US and EU sanctions list.

Recall that last week, Binance imposed restrictions on the accounts of residents of the Russian Federation, whose total value of crypto assets exceeds 10,000 euros.

The novelty impressed even users who were abroad, but used Russian documents for verification.

Earlier, Reuters journalists suspected the Russian regional branch of Binance in collaboration with the FSB and Rosfinmonitoring. The exchange denied all the allegations.