The Financial Times (FT) has published a major investigation alleging that Binance allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to flow through accounts flagged for suspicious activity, even after its landmark $4.3 billion criminal plea deal with U.S. authorities in November 2023. The report, based on leaked internal data spanning 2021 to 2025, raises serious questions about the exchange's post-settlement compliance controls.
The FT reviewed 13 specific Binance accounts that collectively handled $1.7 billion in transactions. Notably, about $144 million of this volume occurred after the November 2023 settlement date. One highlighted account, registered to a Venezuelan resident, moved roughly $93 million over four years, with some funds allegedly originating from networks later accused by U.S. authorities of covertly transferring money for Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Another account, belonging to a 25-year-old Venezuelan woman, received over $177 million in crypto in under two years. The account exhibited extreme behavior, changing its linked bank details 647 times in just 14 months, cycling through nearly 500 unique bank accounts across multiple countries to off-ramp funds.
The investigation uncovered glaring compliance failures. One account showed physically impossible login activity—access from Caracas, Venezuela in the afternoon, followed by a login from Osaka, Japan early the next morning. Another account was registered with a 20-year-old, damaged ID card where the date of birth was unreadable, and the associated email belonged to a completely different person.
Tether (USDT) was a primary vehicle for these flows. Several of the scrutinized accounts received funds in USDT from wallets later frozen by Israeli authorities under anti-terrorism laws. Many transfers were traced to wallets connected to Tawfiq Al-Law, a Syrian national accused of moving money for Hezbollah and Iran-backed Houthi groups. These wallets were seized by Israel in May 2023 and sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in March 2024. The FT reports that the 13 accounts received at least $29 million in Tether from these frozen wallets.
In response, Binance's legal team, Carter-Ruck, stated: "Any suggestion that our client has knowingly facilitated bad actors in criminal conduct is also baseless." They argued that none of the wallets were marked for terror financing at the time of the transactions and insisted no alerts were triggered by major blockchain tracking tools.
This report lands amid intense ongoing scrutiny of Binance. In October, former CEO Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao was pardoned by President Donald Trump after being convicted for willfully violating anti-money-laundering laws. Furthermore, in November, 306 families of victims from the October 7, 2023, attacks filed a lawsuit accusing Binance of enabling Hamas and Hezbollah to launder millions through its platform—claims Binance has called "grotesquely sensationalist." The U.S. Treasury Department has previously criticized Binance for failing to report over 100,000 suspicious transactions linked to crimes including terrorism.
