A cryptocurrency firm accused of involvement in shady overseas dealings had internal whistleblowers flag $1.7 billion in payments to Iran before President Donald Trump pardoned its CEO, The New York Times reported on Monday.
"People in Iran had gained access to more than 1,500 accounts on the Binance platform over the previous year. About $1.7 billion had flowed from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities with links to terrorist groups, a possible violation of global sanctions. And one of those accounts belonged to a Binance vendor," said the report. "After uncovering the transactions, the investigators reported them to top executives, according to company records and other documents."
Last October, Trump granted a full pardon to Binance founder Chanpeng Zhao, who had pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in 2023. Trump claimed, without any evidence, that Zhao was a political target of the Biden administration.
"Internal warnings about the Iranian transactions surfaced last year, in the months before President Trump granted a pardon to Binance’s founder ... who had spent four months in federal prison in 2024 for his role in the firm’s crimes," the report continued. "The Trump family’s crypto start-up, World Liberty Financial, has forged close business ties with Binance, and Mr. Zhao was a guest this month at a conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla."
World Liberty Financial has become a lightning rod for criticism over its conflicts of interest, as the Trump administration and its allies in Congress have moved to establish new regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrency that do little to nothing to oversee the Trump family's venture.
This is not the only questionable activity Binance has been accused of. A lawsuit filed in November alleged that Binance "knowingly enabl[ed] 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."