Binance Iran Investigation: VIP Controls, 21 Accounts and $850M in Trades
The most revealing detail in the latest reporting on Binance and an Iran-linked payment network is not the $850 million headline. It is the approval process investigators reportedly faced when they wanted to remove a valuable customer. In an October 9 investigation, The Wall Street Journal described a Binance customer who received preferential service and lower fees while internal investigators were examining suspicious activity. The customer, identified as Sukhrob Oimakhmadov, was linked by the reporting to a cryptocurrency business associated with Babak Zanjani, an Iranian financier whom U.S. and Israeli authorities have connected to a sanctions-evasion network. According to the Journal, red flags included transactions involving an Iranian money changer and an account repeatedly accessed from Tehran. U.S. and Swiss authorities also made inquiries. But the customers high-value status meant internal investigators needed senior approval to remove him, the newspaper reported, citing Binance records. That is a specific control-design problem. A risk team may be able to detect activity and still struggle to stop it if the authority to restrict a lucrative account is buried in a commercial escalation process.What the $850 million actually describes The scale of the network was reported before this latest account of its internal handling. An earlier Journal investigation
