When the Senate asked about sanctions, the crypto exchange said that “no Binance account transacted directly with an Iran-based entity.”
Exchange for cryptocurrencies Binance has officially answered a question from 11 US senators in February. They primarily refuted allegations of assisting Iranian businesses with transactions and the firing of staff.
In a letter to US Senators Richard Blumenthal and Ron Johnson of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Friday, Binance said that an investigation into the exchange’s activities that started in February was based on reports that were “demonstrably false, unsupported by credible evidence, and defamatory in several material respects.”
Source: Binance
Binance says investigation led to platform removal
The exchange talked about reports from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Fortune that indicated Binance fired employees who alleged the company had helped Hexa Whale and Blessed Trust, two companies linked to Iran, make more than $1 billion in crypto transactions. Binance said that the business started an inquiry when the police asked them to, which led to the withdrawal of the organisations from the platform.
That exchange added, “[T]o our knowledge, no Binance account transacted directly with an Iran-based entity.”
In response to the stories’ assertions that employees who told executives about the probe were fired, Binance responded that several of them quit, while one was fired for sharing internal user information:
Binance takes its users’ privacy very seriously and will not tolerate employees sharing internal information with people outside the company. Binance also pays special attention to its hiring and employment rules. There was nothing different about this job action.
The letter from the 11 senators to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pamela Bondi asked for a comment by March 13 on whether the government officials planned to look into Binance. Bessent and Bondi have not publicly said anything about the issue as of Friday.
Binance’s previous settlement with US authorities
In 2023, Binance signed an agreement with US authorities to pay $4.3 billion to settle violations of sanctions and anti-money laundering rules. As part of the arrangement, then-CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao stepped down and pleaded guilty to one felony charge, which led to a four-month prison sentence.
Following the presidential pardon, an investigation is underway into the relationship between Trump and Binance. Zhao pleaded guilty and went to jail, but he agreed not to take on another leadership role at Binance. But in October, US President Donald Trump pardoned CZ, which made it permissible for him to go back to the exchange. Zhao has said in public that he will not go back to being CEO.
Before Trump announced the pardon, many senators were already looking into the administration’s ties to Binance. This was because a UAE-based corporation called MGX utilised the USD1 stablecoin created by World Liberty Financial to settle a $2 billion investment in the exchange. A lot of MPs have called the arrangement crooked because the president and his sons support World Liberty Financial.