Trump’s Pardoned Binance Founder Faces $1.7B Iran Crypto Scandal
Binance is facing renewed sanctions scrutiny after internal investigators reportedly found $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency transfers to Iranian-linked entities, a discovery that now intersects with President Donald Trump’s pardon of founder Changpeng Zhao.
According to reporting from The New York Times, two Binance accounts sent large volumes of crypto during 2024 and 2025 to wallets associated with entities under U.S. sanctions, including actors linked to Iran.
Investigators inside Binance traced the flows and alerted senior leadership, the Times reported. Some of those compliance staff were later disciplined or dismissed following internal disputes over how the findings were handled.
Binance has denied violating sanctions laws and disputes that employees were terminated for raising concerns. The company said dismissals were related to internal data-handling protocols and not whistleblowing.
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The timing has drawn added attention because Binance founder Changpeng Zhao previously pleaded guilty in the U.S. to compliance failures tied to anti-money-laundering controls, resulting in a $4.3 billion settlement. Zhao later received a pardon from Trump after his conviction.
A spokesperson for Binance said the company “remains committed to full compliance with global sanctions frameworks.”
The renewed allegations raise questions about whether Binance’s post-settlement compliance reforms were sufficient, and whether enforcement agencies may revisit oversight of the exchange.
Regulators have not yet announced new action, but the reported scale of the transfers could trigger further inquiries.
For now, the controversy places Binance back in the political and regulatory spotlight.
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