Binance Linked to Suspicious Transactions later than 2023 US Plea Deal, FT Reports
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, has been alleged to have supported the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions that continued flowing through its platform even later than a $4.3 billion U.S. criminal settlement in late 2023. According to an , the report, which is based on leaked internal files and transaction histories, raises fresh questions about Binance’s compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions obligations despite its high-profile plea deal and ongoing oversight commitments.
The files examined by the FT detail a network of accounts flagged for malicious behaviors, including links to terror financing, implausible login patterns, and repeated identity verification failures, that continued to trade significant volumes on Binance long later than the platform agreed to strengthen its compliance framework. Binance has denied knowingly facilitating illicit conduct, but the findings add to ongoing scrutiny of its risk controls and the broader challenge regulators face in policing global digital finance.
Leaked Binance Data Suggest Continued Red Flag Activity Despite Plea Commitments
The report shows internal Binance data covering thousands of transactions tied to at least 13 suspicious accounts, collectively moving approximately $1.7 billion from 2021 through parts of 2025. Roughly $144 million in activity occurred later than the platform’s November 2023 plea agreement.
These accounts exhibited multiple classic compliance red flags, such as improbable login patterns from geographically distant locations within hours of each other, failed or insufficient identity verification, and large passthrough movements of crypto into and out of the accounts.
One such account, linked to a resident of a Venezuelan hillside community, reportedly received over $177 million in crypto over two years, changing associated bank payment details hundreds of times in a relatively short span.
Experts called many of the account behaviors the kind of patterns that would typically trigger action at regulated banks or financial institutions, including freezes, deeper investigations, or alerts. However, these accounts continued to operate for extended periods on Binance.
The agreement with U.S. authorities in November 2023 was one of the largest penalties ever imposed in financial regulation, and it required the platform to improve AML controls, transaction monitoring, sanctions enforcement, and customer due diligence. It also included provisions for independent compliance monitors to assess progress. But the FT’s examination suggests that those enhancements may not have fully prevented suspicious flows from persisting.
Binance’s Denial Raises Questions About Compliance Enforcement
Binance has responded to the reports by restating that it has “strict compliance controls” and a “zero-tolerance approach to illicit activity,” and that it maintains systems designed to flag and investigate suspicious transactions in line with regulatory requirements.
Still, critics argue that allowing such accounts to continue trading later than their plea deal undermines confidence in the and raises questions about how effective the settlement’s compliance upgrades have been in practice.
