Binance Let Hundreds of Millions Flow Through Suspicious Accounts After US Settlement: FT

Binance's compliance firewall shows cracks—again. Fresh reports allege the crypto giant allowed hundreds of millions to move through questionable channels even after its landmark US settlement.

The Settlement That Wasn't the End

Remember that multi-billion dollar deal with US regulators? It was supposed to be a clean slate. But according to the Financial Times, the flow of funds through shadowy accounts didn't just stop. It continued, involving sums reaching the hundreds of millions mark. The details paint a picture of a compliance apparatus that either failed or looked the other way.

A Pattern, Not an Anomaly

This isn't a one-off glitch. It's a recurring theme for exchanges operating in regulatory gray zones. The industry's favorite line—'we're building the future of finance'—often clashes with the messy reality of monitoring billions in daily transactions. It's the classic tech move: move fast, break things, and deal with the compliance paperwork later. Much later.

The Compliance Tightrope

For Binance, walking the line between global accessibility and regulatory adherence is a daily high-wire act. The pressure is immense: serve millions of users while playing by an ever-shifting rulebook from dozens of jurisdictions. But when hundreds of millions slip through, it raises the inevitable question—is the system overwhelmed, or is it designed with loopholes?

Trust, but Verify (Your Transactions)

The incident serves as a stark reminder for the entire crypto ecosystem. Centralized exchanges remain critical on-ramps, but their internal controls are only as strong as their enforcement. For every sleek app interface, there's a back-end compliance team fighting a war against sophisticated bad actors. Sometimes, the bad actors win a round.

In the end, it's another lesson in crypto's oldest truth: if something seems too good to be true—like seamless, global, unbanked freedom—it probably comes with a hidden cost. And that cost is often measured in millions, and paid in trust.

FT: Binance Processed $93M From Account Tied to Alleged Terror-Linked Network

Among the cases cited by the FT is an account registered to a resident of a Venezuelan slum that moved roughly $93 million through Binance over four years.

Some of those funds originated from a network later accused by US authorities of covertly transferring money for Iran and Lebanon’s Hizbollah.

Another account, registered to a 25-year-old Venezuelan woman, received more than $177 million in crypto over two years and repeatedly changed its linked bank details, 647 times in just 14 months, cycling through nearly 500 unique accounts across multiple countries.

In total, the FT reviewed data tied to 13 suspicious accounts that collectively handled $1.7 billion in transactions.

Binance allowed suspicious accounts to operate even after 2023 US plea agreement https://t.co/5EEWGrwMCg

About $144 million of that volume occurred after the 2023 settlement, raising questions about the effectiveness of Binance’s post-plea compliance measures.

Stefan Cassella, a former US federal prosecutor, told the newspaper that the activity resembled that of an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

The investigation also uncovered examples of physically impossible login activity that went undetected.

One account linked to a Venezuelan bank employee showed access from Caracas in the afternoon, followed by a login from Osaka, Japan, early the next morning, a sequence suggesting account compromise or coordinated misuse.

Several of the accounts received funds in Tether’s USDT stablecoin from wallets later frozen by Israeli authorities under anti-terrorism laws.

Many of those transfers were traced to wallets connected to Tawfiq Al-Law, a Syrian national accused of moving money for Hizbollah and Iran-backed Houthi groups.

Israel seized related accounts in 2023, and the US Treasury sanctioned Al-Law in 2024.

Binance Defends Compliance Controls Amid FT Scrutiny

Binance told the FT that it maintains strict compliance controls and a zero-tolerance approach to illicit activity, citing systems designed to flag and investigate suspicious transactions.

The findings arrive amid renewed scrutiny of Binance’s governance following President Donald Trump’s pardon of founder Changpeng Zhao in October for anti-money laundering violations.

The pardon, coupled with expanded business ties between the TRUMP family and Binance-linked entities, has complicated oversight efforts, according to former intelligence officials.

Despite the appointment of independent monitors in 2024, much of the activity reviewed by the FT reportedly occurred after monitoring began.