DOJ moves to seize 61 million USD in crypto tied to Iranian oil sales routed through Binance accounts
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil forfeiture complaint on Sep. 14 targeting 61 million USD in cryptocurrency tied to Binance trading accounts and black-market sales of Iranian oil. Prosecutors allege the funds moved through accounts held by Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, two China-based firms, before reaching Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a US-designated terrorist organization.
Deputy US Attorney Sean Buckley announced the complaint, saying the action demonstrates the government’s determination to deprive the Government of Iran and its terrorist proxies of the illegal money they rely on to threaten the lives and safety of citizens of the United States and elsewhere.
The same entities Binance called clean
The complaint names the same two entities at the center of a Senate probe earlier this year. When those allegations first surfaced, reported by the Wall Street Journal and examined in Senator Blumenthal’s inquiry, Binance pushed back hard. In March, Co-CEO Richard Teng called the claims “false and defamatory,” saying the exchange had voluntarily responded to the inquiry while highlighting what he described as industry-leading compliance built over years.
Binance maintained that no funds directly touched Iranian entities. Monday’s complaint tells a different story. Prosecutors allege that a network of wallets identified in the filing as Entity A moved more than 1.5 billion USD in illicit Iranian oil proceeds, funneling money to IRGC-linked services and an Iranian exchange.
Notably, the Justice Department’s complaint does not name Binance as a defendant. The action targets the cryptocurrency itself along with the alleged role of Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, leaving the exchange formally outside the case — but squarely inside the narrative.
A familiar pattern
This is not the first time Binance-linked accounts have surfaced in Iran-related sanctions reporting. Reuters previously reported that Shelbit, an Iran-linked exchange fined by Dubai regulators, sent 676 million USD onto Binance. The history runs deeper still: Binance pleaded guilty to US sanctions violations in 2023 and paid a 4.3 billion USD penalty, one of the largest corporate settlements in American legal history.
For enforcement watchers, the pattern is the story. Each new filing adds another data point suggesting that despite the compliance overhaul that followed the 2023 settlement, flows connected to sanctioned jurisdictions continued to find their way onto the platform — or at least onto accounts that the exchange had reason to examine closely.
Awkward timing ahead of a UK license bid
The filing lands roughly two weeks before Binance’s planned UK license bid opens for applications on Sep. 30. The exchange is seeking authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority under Britain’s new crypto regulatory framework, a process built around governance and compliance standards that put a premium on an applicant’s record.
A fresh Iran-linked laundering complaint tied to its platform is unlikely to make that case easier. While Binance itself faces no charges in this filing, the FCA will have to weigh how much weight to give a complaint that alleges 61 million USD in sanctioned-state oil proceeds moved through accounts the exchange previously defended — and which implicates the same entities Binance dismissed as clean months ago.
How the FCA treats the complaint against Binance’s application should become clearer once the window opens. If the regulator grants authorization without public comment on the forfeiture action, it will signal that the 2023 settlement and subsequent reforms carry more weight than ongoing allegations. If the application stalls or draws scrutiny, other exchanges pursuing UK authorization will read the message: past sanctions exposure remains live ammunition long after a settlement is signed.
The wider enforcement picture
The case also illustrates how civil forfeiture has become a favored tool against state-linked crypto laundering. By targeting the assets rather than the platforms, prosecutors can disrupt illicit finance networks without needing to prove an exchange’s complicity — while still generating public records that regulators, lawmakers, and licensing bodies can cite later.
For Binance, the immediate financial exposure appears limited. The reputational exposure is another matter. The exchange is simultaneously navigating its UK ambitions, its global re-licensing push, and a US political environment where crypto regulation remains contested ahead of the CLARITY Act vote. A headline connecting its platform to 1.5 billion USD in alleged IRGC-linked flows is the kind of baggage that follows an application file from one regulator’s desk to the next.
Bitcoin traded near 78,000 USD at press time, with the market focused on this week’s Federal Reserve decision rather than enforcement news, according to CoinGecko data. But for the industry’s compliance teams, the SDNY complaint is a reminder that the gap between “we vouched for these accounts” and “these accounts moved sanctioned oil money” is exactly where enforcement careers are made.
61 million through two china shells ending at the IRGC and binance still wants a UK license in two weeks. bold strategy
Richard Teng publicly called claims about these exact entities wrong back in March. That statement aged about as badly as possible.
to be fair the WSJ piece said compliance flagged some of it internally. still, denying everything publicly after that looks way worse
march denial, september forfeiture complaint. the FCA doesnt even need new questions, just reread the old answers
every teng statement since the settlement has the same energy. deny first, let the DOJ paperwork show up later
Two weeks before a UK license bid is brutal timing. The FCA is going to ask very direct questions about those Shelbit flows of 676 million USD.
676 million through Shelbit and the UK bid was still live two weeks out. hard to call that one an oversight
The 4.3 billion settlement in 2023 was supposed to close this chapter. DOJ naming the same entities Binance already called clean says otherwise.
Teng pushed back hard on the Senate allegations in March and now the complaint repeats them. That pattern is hard to explain to any regulator.
Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale were named in the Senate probe months ago. if the DOJ can trace 61 million to the IRGC now, Binance compliance saw the same flows and stayed quiet
the FCA is gonna love reading this forfeiture complaint two weeks before the license decision. no shot it lands now
agreed on the FCA outcome. even if the seizure is civil and unproven in court, nobody at the FCA signs off on a Binance license with an active SDNY forfeiture tied to the IRGC on the docket
4.3 billion settlement in 2023 and the same two names resurface in an SDNY complaint. compliance exists on paper until the paperwork shows up
Blumenthal is probably printing the framing for his next hearing off this complaint right now