US Prosecutors Investigate Binance Over Alleged Iran Sanctions Violations, Bloomberg Reports
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Binance violated U.S. sanctions on Iran by failing to block certain trading activity on its platform, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter. The probe is being run jointly by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Department of Justice’s criminal division in Washington, and centers on what Binance knew about the relevant activity and when. Binance said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward sanctions violations and is cooperating fully with law enforcement.
The investigation surfaces just weeks after federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed a separate civil forfeiture action seeking to seize roughly $61 million in cryptocurrency allegedly connected to Iranian oil sales, a case that named accounts tied to the exchange. Investigators are now examining whether that flow of funds points to a broader pattern of Iran-linked activity moving through Binance’s platform rather than an isolated incident.
The scrutiny lands nearly three years after Binance’s landmark 2023 settlement with U.S. authorities, in which the exchange paid more than $4.3 billion and founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations as part of a deal that also included a Treasury sanctions settlement and an independent compliance monitor. That resolution was widely framed at the time as drawing a line under Binance’s legal exposure in the U.S.; a fresh federal probe into the same sanctions regime the 2023 settlement was meant to address raises the question of whether that line held.
Binance has since worked to rebuild its standing with U.S. regulators, including a reported push toward closing out its compliance monitorship obligations. A new investigation specifically targeting Iran sanctions compliance — the same jurisdiction at the heart of part of the 2023 case — threatens to complicate that trajectory regardless of what investigators ultimately conclude, since the mere existence of a federal criminal probe can weigh on an exchange’s regulatory relationships and institutional partnerships independent of its outcome.
No charges have been filed, and investigations of this kind can take months or years to resolve, conclude without any enforcement action, or expand well beyond their initial scope. Binance has not indicated whether it plans to conduct or disclose its own internal review of the specific transactions under scrutiny.
This article describes a legal investigation and does not constitute an allegation of wrongdoing by any party; nothing here constitutes financial or legal advice. Readers wanting background on how crypto exchanges navigate international sanctions compliance can visit coin680’s Bitcoin Academy.