Binance faces U.S. probe over Iran sanctions

U.S. federal prosecutors have been investigating whether Binance knowingly allowed trading that violated Iran sanctions, nearly three years after its $4.3 billion federal settlement, according to a Sept. 22 Bloomberg report.

Bloomberg said the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office is leading the inquiry, while the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in Washington is participating. Prosecutors are examining Binance’s compliance controls and whether the exchange knew about the transactions under review, according to the report. Reuters said it had not independently verified Bloomberg’s account.

Binance responded that it maintains a zero-tolerance policy for sanctions violations. The exchange said, “We fully cooperate with law enforcement, and we remain committed to rooting out and shutting down bad actors.” The Justice Department declined to comment to Reuters, while the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office was not immediately available for comment outside normal business hours.

Breaking: U.S. Prosecutors Probe Binance Over Possible Iran Sanctions Violations

U.S. federal prosecutors are investigating whether Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, violated U.S. sanctions on Iran by knowingly allowing certain transactions to proceed, Bloomberg… pic.twitter.com/P1VBmC1Jfu

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 22, 2026

Binance Iran sanctions probe focuses on compliance controls

The reported investigation centers on whether Binance knowingly permitted trading that should have been stopped under U.S. sanctions, according to Bloomberg’s account cited by Reuters. The report did not identify the transactions under review or disclose when prosecutors began examining them.

Scrutiny of the exchange’s Iran-related controls had surfaced months earlier. In March, crypto.news reported that Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Ruben Gallego planned congressional oversight of a reported Justice Department investigation involving Iran-linked transactions. At the time, the inquiry was described as examining whether networks connected to Iran used Binance to evade U.S. sanctions.

Binance disputed claims made in several February reports. In a March 6 response to a Senate inquiry, the company described parts of the reporting as “demonstrably false, unsupported by credible evidence, and defamatory in several material respects.” Binance said its know-your-customer rules prohibit users residing or located in Iran from accessing Binance.com.

$61 million forfeiture complaint names Binance-linked accounts

A separate court action filed on Sept. 14 provides fresh public records concerning Iran-linked funds that moved through accounts on Binance. The Southern District of New York filed a verified civil forfeiture complaint seeking all USDT held in 10 cryptocurrency addresses, court records show. The case is United States v. All USD Tether Held in the Following Cryptocurrency Addresses, No. 1:26-cv-08010.

Prosecutors valued the targeted cryptocurrency at approximately $61 million and alleged it represented proceeds from black-market Iranian crude oil and petroleum sales. The complaint says the money was intended to finance Iranian government and military bodies, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The filing alleges two Chinese companies, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, used Binance trading accounts while handling proceeds connected with Iranian oil sales. Prosecutors said a network of cryptocurrency actors laundered more than $1.5 billion in illicit oil proceeds, while Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale used the U.S. financial system to send or receive tens of millions of dollars.

The forfeiture complaint does not accuse Binance itself of wrongdoing in that proceeding. The Justice Department states that a civil forfeiture complaint contains allegations that remain unproven until a court enters judgment for the government. As crypto.news reported in related coverage, the case is directed at the cryptocurrency held in the identified wallets, not a criminal charge against Binance.

Court records describe the assets as USDT held on addresses operating on the TRON network. The complaint says Tether would burn the tokens covered by a seizure warrant and issue replacement tokens of equal value for transfer into U.S. government custody.

Binance says the firms were offboarded after reviews

Binance has given its own timeline for Hexa Whale and Blessed Trust. In its March congressional response, the exchange said law enforcement contacted it in April 2025 about transactions between Binance wallets and outside addresses with possible terrorism-financing connections. Binance said it supplied KYC and transaction records connected with Hexa Whale in June 2025 and continued reviewing the account afterward.

The company said it removed Hexa Whale from Binance.com on Aug. 13, 2025. A separate set of law-enforcement requests concerning transactions involving other outside wallets arrived during summer 2025, according to Binance. The exchange said investigators then performed a source-of-funds review and offboarded Blessed Trust in January 2026.

Binance maintains that, to its knowledge, no Binance account transacted directly with an Iran-based entity. In another March statement, the company said its investigation found approximately $126.1 million eventually reached wallets linked to Iran after multiple blockchain hops, with as much as $24.1 million reaching IRGC-related wallets. The figures are Binance’s account of its internal review and have not been presented by the company as findings of a court.

The exchange said claims that it fired compliance employees for escalating concerns were false. Binance acknowledged that one employee was dismissed after an internal investigation over what the company described as an unauthorized disclosure of user information, while other compliance workers left voluntarily.

Binance has pointed to staffing and monitoring data while defending its controls. The company says more than 1,500 people work in compliance-related functions, representing roughly 25% of its global workforce. It reported processing more than 71,000 law-enforcement requests during 2025 and claimed exposure to four major Iranian crypto exchanges fell 97.3%, from $4.19 million to $110,000 over two years.

2023 guilty plea imposed monitors and compliance reforms

The current scrutiny follows Binance’s November 2023 criminal resolution with U.S. authorities. The exchange pleaded guilty to offenses involving the Bank Secrecy Act, operating an unregistered money-transmitting business and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Binance agreed to a total criminal financial penalty of $4.316 billion.

In that case, the Justice Department said Binance knowingly failed to install controls that would stop U.S. customers from trading with users in sanctioned jurisdictions. Federal prosecutors said Binance caused more than $898 million in trades between U.S. users and users ordinarily resident in Iran from January 2018 through May 2022.

The settlement required Binance to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years and improve its anti-money-laundering and sanctions systems. Separate coordinated resolutions involved FinCEN, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Later scrutiny centered on whether the post-settlement controls were functioning as required. As crypto.news previously reported, Treasury-related oversight gave authorities access to Binance books, records and systems under separate monitoring obligations, while Iran-linked transaction reports prompted renewed questions about compliance.

Meanwhile, the Sept. 14 forfeiture matter is proceeding separately in the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors are seeking a judgment allowing the United States to retain the USDT named in the complaint, while the filing itself states that its allegations remain unproven unless the court awards judgment to the government.