A lawsuit filed by 535 global terror attack victims and their families accused Binance of providing cryptocurrency transfer services on its platform to multiple entities designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government between 2017 and 2024, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran. The plaintiffs claimed that these organizations completed at least 64 attack-related transactions through the Binance platform, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, and pointed out that a large number of Iranian users' transaction funds indirectly supported violent acts.
However, Judge Janet Varga of the Manhattan District Court in New York stated in her ruling that the plaintiffs failed to provide any reasonable evidence that Binance or its founder, Changpeng Zhao, directly or intentionally participated in or assisted in these attacks. The judge believed that the mere association of accounts with sanctioned entities was not sufficient to constitute a legal basis for conspiracy or criminal offenses. She also criticized the 891-page complaint, containing more than 3,100 paragraphs, calling its structure lengthy, logically confusing, and lacking the necessary legal rigor.
Although the court allowed the plaintiffs to amend the complaint and resubmit it, the current version has been dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The case has not been completely closed, but it faces significant legal obstacles. Changpeng Zhao has consistently and firmly denied the allegations and reiterated that Binance has always strictly complied with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing compliance requirements, emphasizing that such allegations stem from the regulatory pressure the company faced previously.
In fact, Binance had previously reached a settlement with U.S. regulators, paying a $4.32 billion fine to resolve its violations of anti-money laundering regulations and sanctions provisions. At the same time, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal is investigating Binance's alleged circumvention of sanctions against Iran, focusing on millions of dollars in transactions involving Russian sanctioned entities. In response, Binance stated that the relevant reports were untrue and, in accordance with law enforcement requirements, removed the accounts of the two named partners, Hexa Whale and Blessed Trust, in August 2025 and January 2024, respectively.