Binance has pushed back against media reports claiming it dismissed internal investigators after they uncovered suspicious crypto flows linked to Iran.
The exchange was responding to a New York Times report that alleged Binance staff had identified more than 1,500 accounts accessed from Iran and tracked roughly $1.7 billion in transactions moving from two Binance accounts to entities connected to the country, including wallets allegedly tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
One of the accounts reportedly belonged to Hong Kong-based payments firm Blessed Trust, a fiat partner working with Binance.
According to the report, investigators shared their findings with senior executives, including CEO Richard Teng and Chief Compliance Officer Noah Perlman, before the controversy became public.
Blessed Trust denies knowingly processing Iran-linked transactions
According to reports by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Blessed Trust director Leung Ka Kui denied that the Hong Kong payments firm knowingly processed transactions that violated sanctions or funded Iranian entities.
He said the company’s role with Binance was limited to routine operational payments, such as invoices and payroll.
Separately, investigators reportedly identified another Hong Kong-based entity, Hexa Whale Trading, which allegedly transferred around $500 million in USDT to the same network of Iranian-linked accounts.
According to documents cited by both news outlets, the money was ultimately used to finance Iran-backed militias, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The allegations also suggest that members of Binance’s internal investigative team who discovered these findings were suspended or fired in 2025 after presenting their findings.
Binance halted internal probe weeks after Zhao’s U.S. pardon
Reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times suggest Binance executives shut down an internal investigation weeks after former CEO Changpeng Zhao received a U.S. presidential pardon in October.
According to the NYT, at least four investigators were later disciplined over alleged mishandling of confidential user data after flagging transactions linked to Iranian entities.
Separate reporting also noted several senior compliance officials have recently exited the company as Binance searches for a successor to Chief Compliance Officer Noah Perlman, who is expected to leave later this year.
Binance has strongly denied wrongdoing, saying no staff were penalized for raising compliance concerns and that its internal review found no sanctions violations.
The exchange argued the case demonstrates its monitoring systems working as intended, adding that direct exposure to major Iranian crypto exchanges fell by more than 97 percent between January 2024 and January 2026.