🎯 American prosecutors are investigating whether Binance knew about trades that could violate US sanctions against Iran. Bloomberg reported this on September 22, citing people familiar with the case

The investigation is led by the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office. The DOJ's criminal division in Washington is also involved. The question isn't only whether such operations went through the platform, but whether the exchange knowingly allowed them and how its controls worked

This isn't a charge or a trial yet. The DOJ declined to comment.
A week earlier, on September 14, the same Manhattan prosecutors filed a civil lawsuit to seize $61 million in cryptocurrency. According to authorities, two Chinese companies, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, moved money from the Iranian black oil market through Binance accounts. These funds, per the lawsuit, went to the needs of the Iranian military, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the US considers a terrorist organization. The lawsuit mentions a broader network of wallets worth about $1.5 billion. The exchange itself isn't accused in this lawsuit

Binance responded that it has zero tolerance for sanctions violations, that it cooperates with the investigation and closes violators' accounts. The company separately emphasizes: the $61 million lawsuit isn't filed against it and contains no accusations against it. According to it, Hexa Whale was removed from the platform on August 13, 2025, Blessed Trust in January 2026. There were no direct trades of Binance accounts with organizations in Iran, the exchange claims

The story goes back to winter. In February, Fortune, New York Times and Wall Street Journal wrote that Binance's internal investigators found large transfers to structures linked to Iran. The publications cited amounts from 1 to 1.7 billion dollars for 2024–2025, mostly through the Tether stablecoin on the Tron network. After these reports, some employees, according to sources cited by the papers, were suspended or fired. Binance denies this: says people weren't fired for reporting risks, that the check continued, and accounts were closed and data handed to authorities

The numbers differ between the sides. Media describe billion-dollar flows through the exchange. Binance responds that the money didn't start or end on its platform, but went through a chain of intermediaries. By its own estimate, about $126.1 million eventually reached wallets with Iranian links, of which about $24.1 million to wallets linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps

This isn't Binance's first collision with American sanctions. In November 2023, the company pleaded guilty to money laundering, operating without a license and sanctions cases and agreed to pay about $4.3 billion. In that case, authorities separately noted that from 2018 to 2022, over $898 million in trades between US users and users from Iran went through the platform. Founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty, served four months and in October 2025 received a full pardon from Donald Trump

Interesting fact, withdrawals from the Binance exchange are suspended, wtf?

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