Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), said Wednesday he has pressed Binance for records over concerns the cryptocurrency exchange may have given Congress and the public misleading information about reported money laundering and terrorist financing tied to Iran. 

In a letter to Binance co-Chief Executive Officer Richard Teng, Blumenthal said the company failed to provide documents and information previously requested by the subcommittee and questioned Binance’s public characterization of its dealings involving Iran-linked activity. He said the company’s response raised “further alarms” about its candor and its compliance with congressional oversight. 

Blumenthal is seeking documentation Binance used to support its March 6 response to PSI, as well as the records requested in an earlier February letter. The lawmaker has also asked Teng to answer questions about whether any Binance accounts sent or received funds involving Iran-linked wallets, to provide wallet addresses tied to diagrams in a March 10 company blog post, and to disclose year-over-year transaction volumes between Binance and several Iranian exchanges. 

The senator also asked whether Binance had removed, weakened, or relaxed any compliance policies or enforcement mechanisms and whether it had ever declined to investigate or remove accounts appearing to be associated with people or entities inside Iran. 

The letter follows reports that Binance internal investigators identified VIP accounts they said helped channel more than $1 billion to wallets tied to Iran-linked entities, the firm’s leadership fired or otherwise penalized the employees who flagged the suspicious activity. 

In the new letter, Blumenthal said he remained concerned that Binance had not taken sufficient action to prevent its platform from directly or indirectly facilitating illicit finance to Iran and Russia, despite agreements with the Department of Justice and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. He asked the company to respond by April 14.

Read the letter here