Binance faces new US probe over Iran sanctions, three years after its $4.3b guilty plea

US federal prosecutors are investigating whether Binance knowingly allowed trading that violated US sanctions on Iran, Bloomberg reported on September 22, citing people familiar with the matter. The probe puts the world’s largest crypto exchange back under scrutiny just under three years after it pleaded guilty and agreed to pay more than $4.3 billion over sanctions and anti-money-laundering failures.

The investigation is being handled by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), with the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in Washington also involved, according to Bloomberg. Reuters separately reported the probe, citing a source with knowledge of the matter.

No charges have been announced. The reports do not establish that Binance violated sanctions, and they do not say which transactions are under review. The Justice Department and SDNY declined to comment.

Binance says it has zero tolerance for sanctions violations

Binance said it maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward sanctions violations and cooperates with law enforcement. The company has long maintained it has strengthened its compliance programme since 2023.

What prosecutors are reportedly examining

The central question, per Bloomberg, is not simply whether Iran-linked funds touched Binance. It is whether the exchange knowingly allowed trading that should have been blocked under US sanctions.

That distinction matters. Proving that Binance knew about prohibited activity and failed to act is a higher bar than showing sanctioned users or illicit funds passed through the platform. It also directly tests whether the compliance controls Binance adopted after its 2023 settlement worked as intended.

The $61 million forfeiture case

The reported probe follows a separate action. On September 14, SDNY filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking about $61 million in cryptocurrency that prosecutors allege came from black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian oil.

According to the Justice Department, two Chinese companies, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, used trading accounts at Binance to launder the proceeds, which prosecutors allege ultimately reached the Iranian government, its agents or its proxies.

Two points are important:

• A civil forfeiture complaint contains allegations that have not been proven in court.
• The complaint identifies Binance as the platform where the accounts sat. It does not allege misconduct by Binance itself.

Why the 2023 plea looms over this

On November 21, 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, operating as an unlicensed money transmitter and breaching US sanctions law. Founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty separately and stepped down as CEO.

The Justice Department said at the time that Binance failed to put adequate controls in place to stop trades involving users in sanctioned jurisdictions, including more than $898 million in trades between US users and users ordinarily resident in Iran between January 2018 and May 2022.

As part of the settlement, Binance agreed to overhaul its anti-money-laundering and sanctions programmes and to operate under an independent compliance monitor.

Not the first Iran-related headline this year

Binance has faced repeated Iran-related reporting in 2026. In March, Binance sued the Wall Street Journal’s publisher after it reported that the Justice Department was examining whether Iran used the platform to move funds. Binance also denied claims that it processed more than $1 billion in Iran-linked transfers and fired staff who flagged them, and rejected allegations from US lawmakers of sanctions violations.

The Bloomberg report is the first to name the specific prosecutors’ offices reportedly running an investigation into the exchange’s own compliance.

Why it matters for crypto exchanges

Washington has increasingly treated crypto infrastructure as part of its sanctions enforcement toolkit, a shift also seen when the US Treasury sanctioned crypto exchanges for the first time in an Iran enforcement action. For global exchanges, the exposure extends beyond Iran: any platform serving users across borders must be able to show it can identify and block restricted users, wallets and transactions.

What happens next

The investigation is ongoing and its scope is unclear. Prosecutors could bring charges, reach a resolution, or close the matter without action. Any of the three would set a benchmark for how major exchanges are expected to prove their sanctions controls work.

For now, the open question is the one prosecutors are reportedly asking: did Binance’s post-2023 safeguards stop prohibited Iran-linked trading, or did they fail?

Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters