U.S. DOJ: "Two Chinese Companies Laundered Iranian Oil Payments Through Binance"

[Financial News]  

The DOJ said on the 15th, local time, that two Chinese companies attempted to launder $61 million in cryptocurrency payments for black-market Iranian oil and transfer the money to the Iranian government. The funds were reportedly laundered through Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, founded by Chinese Canadian Changpeng Zhao. According to the Financial Times (FT), the DOJ filed a lawsuit seeking to forfeit the money.
In its complaint, U.S. federal prosecutors said Chinese buyers attempted to pay for Iranian oil purchased on the black market in cryptocurrency through Binance accounts and digital wallets. Prosecutors alleged that the cryptocurrency payments were ultimately to be transferred to the Iranian government, its agents, or terrorist groups through a network of digital wallets that handled proceeds from more than $1.5 billion in illegal oil sales.
The DOJ did not disclose how much of the $1.5 billion entered Iran, but said that at least some of the money that reached Iran was used for terrorist activities. It did not identify the specific terrorist groups or activities that received the funds.
The lawsuit has also revived scrutiny of President Donald Trump's efforts to ease oversight of cryptocurrency regulation and his pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao last October.
Binance pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering laws and other offenses and paid a $4.3 billion fine. Zhao served four months in federal prison for failing to maintain adequate anti-money-laundering controls before receiving a pardon from Trump.
Trump and Zhao's Binance are also financially intertwined.
A fund in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), purchased a $2 billion stake in Binance from Zhao last year. The entire purchase price was paid in USD1, a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company owned by the Trump family.

[email protected] Song Kyung-jae Reporter