Bombing Iran With Crypto
Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in October. But a sworn U.S. enemy allegedly kept doing business through the sanctioned crypto exchange
“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.”― Noam Chomsky
Bang the war drum with one hand. Count the money with the other. This is how it goes with the world’s largest crypto exchange.
In November 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay more than $4 billion in penalties. U.S. authorities had alleged the company failed to maintain anti-money-laundering controls and allowed transactions involving sanctioned nations, including Iran.
Founder Changpeng Zhao, 49, pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements and was later sentenced to four months in prison.
Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said at the time:
“Because Changpeng Zhao knowingly operated a financial platform without basic anti-money laundering safeguards, the company caused illegal transactions between U.S. users and users in sanctioned jurisdictions such as Iran, Cuba, Syria, and Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine.”
Last spring, Binance backed a nascent crypto venture tied to President Donald Trump’s family, World Liberty Financial, helping push its valuation from millions into the billions, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In October, Trump pardoned Zhao, calling him the victim of a Biden “witch hunt.”
Iran-linked accounts allegedly continued funding terrorist groups through Binance’s network, including Yemen’s Houthi militants, according to reports this week in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other major news outlets. Binance disputes the characterization of those findings, says the suspected accounts were removed, and denies violating sanctions laws.
Binance fired staffers who flagged $1 billion moved through Iranian accounts and it dismantled their internal investigation, according to the news reports. Binance disputes that it terminated staffers for their involvement in the probe.
The reports emerged as Trump orders one of the largest U.S. naval and air deployments to the Middle East in decades and publicly threatens war with Iran.
If Iran must be contained, sanctions are supposed to help do the containing. But sanctions only work if they’re enforced – not pardoned.
What’s left on the table now is escalation. And if Iran wants to fight, it has bitcoin.
