US prosecutors moved to seize $61M laundered through Binance, cryptocurrency tied to sanctioned Iranian oil sales, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said.
The complaint alleges two China-based firms, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, used trading accounts on the UAE-based exchange to move oil proceeds. Blessed Trust posed as a digital-asset custody firm and Hexa Whale as a commodities broker, while their clients spanned China's oil and petroleum sector.
A cluster of wallets prosecutors call "Entity A" is said to have received and distributed more than $1.5 billion in illicit oil revenue, routing funds to money handlers tied to Iran's IRGC, other crypto addresses, and an Iran-based exchange.
The move marks a fresh escalation of the DOJ's scrutiny of Binance over Iran-linked flows, reviving compliance questions the exchange has faced since its $4.3 billion settlement and founder CZ's 2023 guilty plea over lax anti-money-laundering controls.
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