- An $8 million pig butchering case against Binance has been dismissed
- Divya Gadasalli sent the money to a romance scammer and blamed Binance for facilitating the crime
- Binance was absolved due to the fact that it isn’t legally allowed to operate in Texas
An $8 million court case accusing Binance of being complicit in a pig butchering scheme has been thrown out by a Texas court. A Texan woman named Divya Gadasalli, who was left millions by her murdered father, claimed that the exchange facilitated the romance scam perpetrated by Jerry Bulasa which saw her hand over the money over a period of months. Bulasa used the 2020/21 crypto boom to con Gadasalli out of the money, but Gadasalli’s claims that Binance helped the conman ply his trade have been dismissed.
Gadasalli Targeted for Wealth
Gadasalli was seemingly intentionally targeted, with Bulasa telling her he could maximize her financial position by investing it in cryptocurrency, which, in May 2021, was enjoying its biggest boom yet. Shortly after their online encounter, Bulasa convinced Gadasalli to send $10,000 to a bank account registered under the name Dong Lian, an individual whom Bulasa claimed to conduct regular cryptocurrency trades with. Within days, Gadasalli proceeded to wire additional sums of $86,000 and $100,000 to a different account at another bank, also under the same name.
Further deposits to purported crypto brokerages followed, with Gadasalli able to take out money that Bulasa claimed he had made for her, despite the amounts being far less than she was sending. Buoyed by the success, Gadasalli transferred $200,000 to a bank account belonging to an individual identified as Danyun Lin, who was presented to her as another trading partner.
Binance Not Complicit
While Gadasalli thought her money was being invested for a return it was in fact being siphoned off by Bulasa, who sent the money through Binance and Poloniex among others before cashing it out. She eventually became suspicious when she could no longer withdraw her funds and reported it to the police, by which time she had spent $8 million of the fortune left by her father.
Gadasalli sued Bulasa and the individuals to whom she sent funds, as well as suing Binance and Poloniex, saying that despite Binance being banned in Texas Bulasa used a VPN to fool its systems. Binance filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming that it didn’t operate in Texas, and Judge Amos Mazzant agreed, dismissing the case against the exchange. Given this ruling the suit against Poloniex is expected to go the same way, leaving Gadasalli’s claims against the perpetrators as the only way she can hope to get her money back.
