Binance fired members of its internal compliance investigations team after they raised concerns that Iran-linked entities may have moved more than $1 billion through the crypto exchange, according to new reporting by Fortune.
The investigators concluded that entities tied to Iran received the funds from March 2024 through August 2025, with transactions routed through Binance using the stablecoin Tether on the Tron blockchain, according to Fortune, which cited multiple unnamed sources and internal documents.
After the compliance investigators submitted internal reports detailing their findings, at least five were fired beginning in late 2025, Fortune said. Several of those affected held leadership roles overseeing special and global financial investigations, including work tied to sanctions evasion and counterterrorism financing, and at least three had law enforcement backgrounds in Europe and Asia, according to the report.
Four of the crypto exchange’s top compliance staff have separately left or been pushed out since late 2025, the magazine said, citing sources and publicly available information.
“That’s rather shocking that that happened under a monitorship with [Binance] internal investigators,” Robert Appleton, a partner with Olshan Frome Wolosky, told Fortune.
Binance has denied the allegations. In a message posted on X on Sunday, Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng revealed the company has sent a letter to Fortune editors requesting a correction and clarification.
“The record must be clear,” Teng wrote in the post. “No sanctions violations were found, no investigators were fired for raising concerns, and Binance continues to meet its regulatory commitments.”
Read more at Fortune