Crypto exchange Binance may have funded Iranian entities, reports say | Binance
Shortly after Donald Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao last fall, company employees revealed that the cryptocurrency exchange may have provided billions of dollars in funding to Iranian organizations. New York Times report.
The discovery was made by a group of Binance researchers who found that individuals in Iran had accessed more than 1,500 accounts on the crypto platform. Two of these accounts allegedly transferred $1.7 billion to Iran-backed groups, including Houthi militants in Yemen, between 2024 and 2025. Wall Street Magazine.
Company investigators said they reported these transactions to Binance executives, but were later subjected to disciplinary action. At least four of the employees were reportedly fired or suspended over allegations involving “violations of company protocol” regarding the handling of customer data.
In a statement to the Guardian, a Binance spokesperson said the company “did not violate sanctions laws regarding the disclosed transactions.” The spokesman also denied that internal investigators were fired for bringing up the discovery. “No investigator has been dismissed for raising compliance concerns or reporting potential enforcement issues,” the statement said.
Zhao founded Binance in 2017 and it has become the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering and resigned from the company. He was sentenced to four months in prison. As part of the guilty plea, Zhao agreed to pay a $50 million fine and was banned from any involvement in the business.
In October, Trump pardoned Zhao, downplaying the crimes. Trump’s family’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial, Worked at Binance and Zhao attended a conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.
“They say what he did wasn’t even a crime. It wasn’t a crime,” Trump told reporters in October. “He was persecuted by the Biden administration, and so at the request of many good people, I granted him a pardon.”
Binance also pleaded guilty in 2023 and agreed to internal monitoring and a criminal fine of approximately $1.81 billion, as well as a $2.51 billion forfeiture judgment to resolve three criminal charges. The company also promised to go after bad actors who use its platform for financial transactions, including customers from Iran.
According to the New York Times, the Iran transactions were revealed internally before Trump’s pardon. The organizations reportedly receiving the funding include the arch-foreign enemy the Trump administration reportedly plans to attack.
Binance and the White House did not immediately return requests for comment.
