Venezuela Arrests Three Over Binance P2P Arbitrage Scheme
Three individuals were arrested in Maracaibo, Venezuela for allegedly running a USDT arbitrage scheme through Binance's peer-to-peer platform. The suspects, identified as Adrián Jesús Gómez, José Ángel Hernández, and Guillermo José Roldán, operated out of a residential area in the city.
The group is accused of exploiting the gap between Venezuela's official exchange rate and its parallel market rate by buying dollars at the official BCV rate through regulated auction desks, converting them to USDT on Binance, and then reselling them at the higher parallel rate. Authorities seized phones, a laptop, and a motorcycle during the arrest.
Venezuelan authorities have characterized this pattern as illegal currency arbitrage rather than ordinary trading, arguing that using state-subsidized official-rate channels to fund parallel market resale violates exchange control regulations. The country's anti-money-laundering framework also gives prosecutors room to investigate accounts receiving funds tied to this kind of activity.