Binance Denies ₱57.92 billion ($1 billion) Iran USDT Transaction Claims

₱57.92 billion ($1 billion). That's how much Iran-linked USDT transactions Fortune reported on February 13, allegedly processed through Binance between March 2024 and August 2025.

Binance CEO Richard Teng rejected the claims outright, saying the record must be clear — no sanctions violations were found, no investigators were fired for raising concerns, and Binance continues to meet its regulatory commitments. The exchange asked Fortune to correct its reporting and denied claims that Binance dismissed 5 compliance investigators who flagged the transactions.

The timing makes these allegations particularly damaging. Binance paid ₱249.04 billion ($4.3 billion) to U.S. authorities in 2023, the largest corporate fine in American history at that time. Founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to oversight failures, served a 4-month prison sentence, and stepped down as CEO. U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control documented 1,667,153 transactions totaling ₱40.89 billion ($706 million) in Iranian sanctions violations between August 2017 and October 2022 during that settlement.

Zhao defended Binance's compliance record on social media, saying the exchange banned Iranian users after U.S. sanctions with only 7 users missed or finding workarounds before being blocked. The company's former Chief Compliance Officer said in 2022 that Binance requires full KYC checks and prohibits Iranian residents, with exposure to Iranian-linked entities declining exponentially from June 2021 to November 2022. Binance now employs 1,300 compliance staff.

Blockchain analytics firms TRM Labs, Chainalysis, and Elliptic have documented growing use of USDT by Iranian-linked actors to circumvent traditional banking sanctions, with most activity occurring on the Tron blockchain. On April 2, 2025, OFAC sanctioned 8 crypto addresses tied to a Houthi financing network backed by Iran's IRGC-QF — all on Tron, with the majority involving USDT activity.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated during the 2023 settlement: "A corporate strategy that puts profits over compliance isn't a path to riches, it's a path to federal prosecution."