The Department of Justice has opened a probe into whether Iran relied on Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange, to skirt US sanctions and support militant organizations, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Houthi movement, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Officials have begun reaching out to people familiar with the transactions as they gather evidence related to funds that passed through Binance and were allegedly connected to those entities.
The scope of the investigation is still unclear, with officials not saying whether the exchange itself could face scrutiny or if the focus is limited to its users.
The probe centers on transactions initially flagged by Binance’s own internal compliance team, which identified approximately $1.7 billion moving from Chinese clients into digital wallets allegedly used by Iran to fund its regional proxies. A Hong Kong-based payments firm called Blessed Trust reportedly sent more than $1 billion of that total through the exchange. Binance suspended the employees conducting this internal investigation last November, shortly after they escalated their findings to company leadership.
A Treasury Department-appointed monitor overseeing the exchange’s compliance operations has separately requested detailed information about the Iranian transactions, including documentation related to Blessed Trust’s role in facilitating the alleged fund transfers.
This is a developing story.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
