Iran reportedly funneled billions through Binance to fund its military
Key takeaways
- The crypto company previously pled guilty to violating Iran sanctions.
- Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Iran has reportedly still found ways to funnel money through entities like Binance despite previous sanctions against the company and a jail sentence for its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao.
- Binance itself flagged the alleged activity, but Zanjani's main account continued to operate for as long as 15 months and was still open in January 2026, the reports showed.
The crypto company previously pled guilty to violating Iran sanctions.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Iran has reportedly still found ways to funnel money through entities like Binance despite previous sanctions against the company and a jail sentence for its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao. An Iranian named Babak Zanjani, who has called himself an "antisanction operator," made $850 million in transactions on the exchange until as recently as December 2025, according to internal Binance compliance reports seen by The Wall Street Journal. That's on top of another $1.7 billion that the same network may have moved through Binance, as reported earlier by The New York Times and WSJ.
Binance itself flagged the alleged activity, but Zanjani's main account continued to operate for as long as 15 months and was still open in January 2026, the reports showed. Around half of the sum (about $425 million) could have moved through Binance to fund Iran's military, experts told the WSJ. "Binance's own investigators assessed the accounts were a money-laundering network to finance the regime, according to compliance reports," the article states.