Binance CEO Denies WSJ Claims of Processing $850M for Sanctioned Iranian Financier

Binance CEO Richard Teng has pushed back against a new Wall Street Journal investigation claiming the exchange processed $850 million in transactions tied to a sanctioned Iranian financier, which eventually flowed to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In a Friday post on X, Teng called the reporting “fundamentally inaccurate,” saying that Binance never permitted transactions with sanctioned individuals and that any flagged activity occurred before those individuals were placed under US sanctions. He also claimed Binance had investigated the issues before the Journal contacted the company, and that facts it provided were not included in the story.

The Journal’s report, published on Thursday, identified Babak Zanjani, who was re-sanctioned by the US in January, as the central figure in a secret crypto payment network that ran $850 million through Binance accounts over two years. Zanjani’s firm Zedcex, along with accounts belonging to his sister, romantic partner and a company director, all operated from the same devices, per the report.

Source: Richard Teng

The Journal claimed that Binance’s internal compliance reports flagged the Zedcex account after detecting access from Tehran in late 2024. The account stayed open for more than a year, triggering over a dozen further internal alerts. Binance’s own investigators recommended the accounts be shut down and reported to authorities, but the Journal says the accounts remained active.

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Binance allowed Iranian funds after settlement: WSJ

Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to anti-money laundering and sanctions violations and paid a record $4.3 billion fine, pledging to overhaul its compliance systems. However, according to the Journal, the alleged Iranian fund flows resumed shortly after.

In March, the Journal also reported that the Justice Department is now investigating Iran’s use of Binance to evade sanctions in the wake of that guilty plea. Following the report, Binance filed a defamation lawsuit against the publication, seeking damages and a jury trial. The exchange denied knowledge of any DOJ investigation, telling Cointelegraph it continues to cooperate with regulators and law enforcement.

Beyond Zanjani's network, the Journal claimed that Iran’s central bank moved $107 million in crypto into Binance accounts in 2025, and a foreign law-enforcement agency tracked roughly $260 million in direct transactions between Binance accounts and Iranian terrorist financiers during 2024 and 2025.

“Binance has zero-tolerance for illicit activity and has built and operates a best-in-class industry-leading compliance program that continues to grow,” Teng wrote on X.

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Binance denies shutting down internal Iran probe

In February, another Journal report alleged Binance shut down an internal investigation into roughly $1 billion that flowed through the platform to networks linked to Iranian proxy groups. Binance denied dismantling any compliance investigation, saying its internal probe continued and uncovered a sophisticated, multi-jurisdictional pattern of financial activity across Asia, the Middle East and beyond.

The exchange also published a blog post addressing what it called false claims, and separately responded to a Senate inquiry in March, denying it facilitated transactions to Iranian entities.