FT: $1,7 billion passed through suspicious Binance accounts

Key points:

• The Financial Times claims that Binance continued to conduct large transactions through suspicious accounts even after reaching an agreement with US authorities.
• About $1,7 billion passed through 13 risky accounts, including $144 million after the settlement in 2023.

Binance continued to process hundreds of millions of dollars through high-risk accounts even after the $4,3 billion agreement with US authorities in 2023. Financial Times reports, citing internal documents from the exchange.

According to the publication, certain accounts with serious compliance risks retained access to trading even after Binance’s November agreement with the US Department of Justice. The leak covers transactions from 2021 to 2025 and points to systemic gaps in control, despite the company’s public statements about strengthening oversight.

Binance’s risky accounts

One example was an account registered to a resident of a Venezuelan slum, through which approximately $93 million passed over four years. According to the FT, some of the funds were linked to a network accused by US authorities of secretly financing Iranian and Lebanese Hizbollah.

Another account, registered to a 25-year-old Venezuelan woman, received more than $177 million in cryptocurrency over two years. The account’s bank details changed 647 times in 14 months, using nearly 500 different accounts in various countries.

In total, the Financial Times analyzed 13 similar accounts with a combined turnover of about $1,7 billion. Approximately $144 million was transferred after the dispute with the US authorities was settled, which calls into question the effectiveness of subsequent compliance measures.

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Binance’s position

Binance told the FT that it has a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal activity and uses systems to detect and investigate suspicious transactions.

The investigation comes amid scrutiny of the exchange’s corporate governance after Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was pardoned by President Donald Trump in October for AML violations.

Despite the appointment of independent monitors in 2024, a significant portion of the transactions examined by the Financial Times, according to the publication, took place after external monitoring began.