Federal prosecutors — including the U.S. Department of Justice — are investigating whether Binance has allowed Iran to dodge sanctions by using its platform, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The outlet, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Tuesday that feds were investigating whether Binance Holdings Ltd., which operates the world’s biggest crypto exchange, knowingly allowed Iran-linked entities to trade.
It comes after the U.S. Department of Justice last week said it is seizing and seeking to forfeit $61 million in cryptocurrency that it alleges came from black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian oil. The funds, according to the DOJ, were laundered through Binance by Chinese entities.
Iran has been using bitcoin — and other cryptocurrencies — to skirt around U.S. sanctions. The U.S. in April started targeting crypto wallets linked to the Iranian regime, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
Bessent went on to say that the Iranian regime’s crypto had been frozen — mostly in the form of Tether’s USDT stablecoin.
And last week, the Treasury designated BitBank, an Iranian crypto exchange, as part of Operation Economic Outcast — the Trump Administration’s whole-of-government economic campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers.
Iran started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for its counties shipping companies earlier this year. Bitcoin cannot be frozen, unlike many other cryptocurrencies.
The Financial Times this month reported that the Middle Eastern country was using bitcoin to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian crypto exchanges after the central bank advised its countrymen to do anything necessary to help the economy.
Binance, which has no headquarters but is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, ran into trouble with U.S. authorities after it allegedly allowed funds linked to virtual theft and terrorism to flow through its exchange undetected.
It exited the U.S. market and agreed to pay $4.3 billion. Its CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao stepped down after pleading guilty to anti-money laundering violations but was later pardoned by President Trump.
Mathew is a reporter who's covered the space since 2019, reporting on everything from Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele's Bitcoin bet to crypto exchange FTX's bankruptcy.