{"id":104151,"date":"2025-11-26T03:53:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T03:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=104151"},"modified":"2025-11-26T03:53:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T03:53:00","slug":"binance-accused-of-aiding-terrorists-in-new-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=104151","title":{"rendered":"Binance accused of aiding terrorists in new lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Binance and its founders, including billionaire Changpeng Zhao, are facing a lawsuit in the US accusing the company of helping send millions of dollars to US- US-designated terrorist organisations, including Hamas and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

The legal action against the world\u2019s largest cryptocurrency platform was brought by US victims of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel or their families.<\/p>\n

It is poised to revive scrutiny of the firm\u2019s practices just a few weeks after President Donald Trump\u00a0pardoned Zhao, who had pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges related to money laundering.<\/p>\n

Binance declined to comment on the litigation but said it complied \u201cfully with internationally recognised sanctions laws\u201d.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit accuses the firm of knowingly facilitating the transfer of more than $1bn to and from accounts connected to organisations designated by the US as foreign terrorist groups and responsible for the 7 October attacks.<\/p>\n

Those payments included $50m sent after the 7 October attacks and at least two transactions sent from the US, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in North Dakota.<\/p>\n

Binance in November 2023 had pleaded guilty and agreed to pay more than $4bn in penalties to resolve charges of money laundering and sanctions violations brought by the US government.<\/p>\n

At the time, it pledged to improve its anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance programmes as part of that agreement.<\/p>\n

But even after the settlement, according to the lawsuit, the company maintained a policy to only screen funds for suspicious activity when customers tried to transfer money off the platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy deliberately failing to monitor inbound funds, Binance ensured that terrorists and other criminals could deposit and shuffle enormous sums on the exchange with impunity,\u201d , the complaint says.<\/p>\n

It alleges that the company \u201cintentionally structured itself as a refuge for illicit activity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, there is no indication that Binance has meaningfully altered its core business model,\u201d the complaint says.<\/p>\n

The families are seeking financial damages from the company to be determined in a jury trial.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Binance said it had improved its compliance systems and that \u201cillicit flows\u201d represented a tiny fraction of the money traded on its platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain steadfast in our commitment to working with regulators, law enforcement, and our users to protect the integrity of the global digital-asset ecosystem,\u201d a spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit follows controversy over Trump\u2019s decision last month to pardon Zhao, also known as \u201cCZ\u201d, who had admitted he failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme at Binance.<\/p>\n

Trump, whose family has business ties to Zhao, subsequently claimed he had \u201d no idea\u201d who Mr Zhao was, while acknowledging his sons\u2019 involvement in the crypto industry.<\/p>\n

In a letter to administration officials last month, top Democrats said they were concerned the pardon would encourage criminal activity, alleging that it signalled to \u201ccryptocurrency executives and other white-collar criminals that they can commit crimes with impunity, so long as they enrich President Trump enough\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BinanceBinance and its founders, including billionaire Changpeng Zhao, are facing a lawsuit in the US accusing the company of helping send millions of dollars to US- US-designated terrorist organisations, including Hamas and Hezbollah.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11104,4247,1910,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-binance","category-crypto-currency","category-international","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}