Vladimir Smerkis, Binance’s former Russia Division Head, was arrested in Russia to be associated with a large-scale criminal fraud case, Local Media Outlet Tass reported Sunday.
Zamoskvoretsky District Court, a resident of Moscow, met an investigator’s request to withhold Smerkis, told a named law enforcement agency source to Tass. The report did not share specific details about the fraud case. Coindesk was unable to contact the Zamoskvoretsky District Court for more information.
Smerkis founded the Trade App Blum in December 2023, but the company said on Saturday at X that he had stepped down from his role as Chief Marketing Officer and is no longer involved in the project. He has also been the CEO of four other ventures, including Tokenbox.io and Token Fund according to LinkedIn.
Before he started Blum, Smerkis for Binance Crypto Exchange from 2022 worked for almost two years. During that time he was the leader of Russia and later the leader of its Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) business according to LinkedIn. The CIs are a group of 11 nations that coordinate the most important decisions such as trade and legislation; Russia is among these nations.
Binance did not return a request for comment.
