A new lawsuit against a cryptocurrency company whose billionaire founder was recently pardoned of federal crimes by President Donald Trump argued that the firm "knowingly" helped finance the Oct. 7, 2021, attack on Israel by Hamas, Reuters reported on Monday.
The firm, Binance, serves as an exchange for cryptocurrency trading, and was the primary competitor to FTX before the latter firm was implicated in a fraud scheme by its CEO and declared bankruptcy in 2022.
"According to a complaint made public on Monday, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange laundered money for Hamas even after pleading guilty in November 2023 and paying a $4.32 billion criminal penalty for violating federal anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws," reported Reuters.
The plaintiffs, who include 306 American victims and relatives of victims, "accused Binance of knowingly enabling Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iran's Revolutionary Guard to move more than $1 billion through its platform, including more than $50 million after the October 7 attack," according to the report.
"Binance intentionally structured itself as a refuge for illicit activity," the complaint said. "To this day, there is no indication that Binance has meaningfully altered its core business model."
Binance's former CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in 2023. Earlier this year, Trump gave him a full pardon, claiming that he was politically targeted by the Biden administration.
However, that pardon came after Binance spent months promoting a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture owned by Trump family members that has netted them over $1 billion in profit.