Iran moved billions of dollars through Binance to fund their military

[NotATether]

Reposted from Altcoinstalks

As Iran braced for conflict with the U.S., a key regime financier built a secret payment network to keep money flowing to its military forces. At its core was Binance.

Until as recently as December, the network, run by Babak Zanjani, an Iranian who is a self-described “antisanction” operator, made $850 million in transactions over two years on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, mostly on a single trading account, internal Binance compliance reports show.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-binance-crypto-military-e755b218

The more damning part of this is that Binance knew about all this movement and yet decided to let it happen anyway.

This is another reminder that KYC is just a sham, in order for governments to get all data about you, and tax you, while letting your data get leaked by hackers due to lax security practices.

[_act_]

It will be good to know that CEO of Binance has denied this according to what he posted on X about it.

https://x.com/i/status/2057692969378189552

He said that Binance did not permit any transactions with sanctioned individuals on its platform, and transactions mentioned by WSJ happened before these individuals were sanctioned.

[OmegaStarScream]

It will be good to know that CEO of Binance has denied this according to what he posted on X about it.

https://x.com/i/status/2057692969378189552

He said that Binance did not permit any transactions with sanctioned individuals on its platform, and transactions mentioned by WSJ happened before these individuals were sanctioned.

Binance sued The wall street journal for defamation not a long time ago: https://www.binance.com/en/blog/compliance/4629471661565530384

And based on that, I would highly doubt WSJ would simply publish another report, unless they have concrete evidence to backup their new claims.

[PX-Z]

It will be good to know that CEO of Binance has denied this according to what he posted on X about it.

https://x.com/i/status/2057692969378189552

He said that Binance did not permit any transactions with sanctioned individuals on its platform, and transactions mentioned by WSJ happened before these individuals were sanctioned.

They have the right to deny those allegations, or they will get another sanction and be fined for doing so, well, unless WSJ has strong, concrete evidence backing their allegations, just like mentioned above or another defamation case will be raised against them, since this is about the largest crypto exchange again getting penalized lol

[PrivacyG]

The more damning part of this is that Binance knew about all this movement and yet decided to let it happen anyway.

This is another reminder that KYC is just a sham, in order for governments to get all data about you, and tax you, while letting your data get leaked by hackers due to lax security practices.

Do not worry, after a particular amount of Money you can get your own 'Get out of jail free' card as in a Great Pardon by the sitting President.  Know Your Customer was always a tool for peasants.  Not for the Wealthy.

[uchegod-21]

Why do individuals use a KYCed CEX to move funds like the one explained by Op. Infact, of this is an individual, we would blame him, but this is an entire country. They should be more informed than an individual.

I had to think why they make such a mistake with large sums. Is it that is is exchanges like binance that has the liquidity they need as DEX will not have such a liquidity.

But whatever be the case, I believe there is a more privacy oriented means to bypass such an ugly act of using a KYC CEX to move funds

[fortunecrypto]

I had to think why they make such a mistake with large sums. Is it that is is exchanges like binance that has the liquidity they need as DEX will not have such a liquidity.

They have to take those risks, liquidity or getting exposed, since they don't trust DEX to have that liquidity

But whatever be the case, I believe there is a more privacy oriented means to bypass such an ugly act of using a KYC CEX to move funds

Mixing services are one option, but they need to split the transactions, as no mixing service has the funds to accept these billions.

Binance has stated these facts, but WSJ.com did not publish them. Putting Binance into the spotlight, is it because they just want to get back at Binance for charging them for defamation earlier?

Fact: Binance did not permit any transactions with sanctioned individuals on its platform, and transactions mentioned by WSJ happened before these individuals were sanctioned.

Fact: Binance proactively investigated these issues before the WSJ outreach. Binance provided these facts to the WSJ and it did not print them.

 

[BALIK]

It will be good to know that CEO of Binance has denied this according to what he posted on X about it.

https://x.com/i/status/2057692969378189552

He said that Binance did not permit any transactions with sanctioned individuals on its platform, and transactions mentioned by WSJ happened before these individuals were sanctioned.

In fact almost all the big centralized exchange in the world have sung many such songs in past to save their own backs. But the story is this report by Wall Street Journal is not just a rumor floating in air. It has been prepared based on Binance's own internal compliance documents. And there is a clear indication that despite the red flags being raised there, they have processed large transactions worth billion of dollar at rocket speed. This whole case clearly shows one thing in the market that no matter how large centralized exchange you are, it is extremely difficult to control the movement of such high profile funds completely

[eaLiTy]

~
And there is a clear indication that despite the red flags being raised there, they have processed large transactions worth billion of dollar at rocket speed. This whole case clearly shows one thing in the market that no matter how large centralized exchange you are, it is extremely difficult to control the movement of such high profile funds completely

Do you really think it would be difficult for a centralized exchange to monitor these transactions ?. If the said individual made transactions worth billions, the exchange will get service charges worth millions.

Binance does have a strict verification process. They have asked me for facial recognition a few times when I tried to withdraw bigger amounts. It makes no sense to think that someone listed on multiple watchlists slipped through these processes and the Binance team was unaware of the situation.

[examplens]

Do you really think it would be difficult for a centralized exchange to monitor these transactions ?. If the said individual made transactions worth billions, the exchange will get service charges worth millions.

Binance does have a strict verification process. They have asked me for facial recognition a few times when I tried to withdraw bigger amounts. It makes no sense to think that someone listed on multiple watchlists slipped through these processes and the Binance team was unaware of the situation.

I think that such large amounts never go through personal accounts. It could be a network of partners, API resellers, that in a short period of time extracted such a quantity from the exchange. If at that moment it did not deviate too much from the usual pattern, everything could have gone unnoticed until the transactions were finalized.

[Ayers]

Why do individuals use a KYCed CEX to move funds like the one explained by Op.
I believe there is a more privacy oriented means to bypass such an ugly act of using a KYC CEX to move funds

Using a tightly monitored KYC portal like Binance for movement of such a large fund at the national or international level is extremely risky move. For them implementing a privacy focused mechanism would have been much more masterful. For example they could use Monero or a perfectly mixed coin or a pure decentralized protocol. However combining billions of dollars of liquidity into one table is a huge challenge. In fact this whole incident is a living example, from this incident it can be understood in best way that 100% financial sovereignty and the real power of these privacy tools are much more important in our lives

[logfiles]

Source: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-binance-crypto-military-e755b218

The more damning part of this is that Binance knew about all this movement and yet decided to let it happen anyway.

This is another reminder that KYC is just a sham, in order for governments to get all data about you, and tax you, while letting your data get leaked by hackers due to lax security practices.

Or maybe the US sanctions against other sovereign states just because they don't like them are just bullshit. I mean at one point, some of these services/platforms also see through the double standards and decided to keep a blind eye on the so-called sanctions.

Let say the same exchange was used by the Israeli Army or mercenaries  to move funds to buy more weapons to continue killing innocents people, why doesn't it cause outrage just as much?

[Darker45]

This news is rather full of irony. How is it a "secret payment network" when it's using a centralized service that strictly requires KYC and that's highly compliant, submissive, to the demands and whims of regulators and other government agencies?

It's also funny how a supposed "antisanction" operator is making large transactions via an exchange that's quick in implementing government sanctions to individuals and institutional users. Aren't they aware of self-custody or of decentralized or peer-to-peer transactions?

[aoluain]

Source: https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-binance-crypto-military-e755b218

The more damning part of this is that Binance knew about all this movement and yet decided to let it happen anyway.

This is another reminder that KYC is just a sham, in order for governments to get all data about you, and tax you, while letting your data get leaked by hackers due to lax security practices.

Or maybe the US sanctions against other sovereign states just because they don't like them are just bullshit. I mean at one point, some of these services/platforms also see through the double standards and decided to keep a blind eye on the so-called sanctions.

Let say the same exchange was used by the Israeli Army or mercenaries  to move funds to buy more weapons to continue killing innocents people, why doesn't it cause outrage just as much?

Whatever way you look at it its great to see that in a way Satoshi's original intention for Bitcoin is
playing out still today! transferring money without the need for governments and central banks being
involved. _{ok there is still an intermediatory involved of sorts}

And more importantly its goes to show that the injustices of punishing sanctions can be side stepped
with Bitcoin and other crypto.

[bitmover]

The more damning part of this is that Binance knew about all this movement and yet decided to let it happen anyway.

This is another reminder that KYC is just a sham, in order for governments to get all data about you, and tax you, while letting your data get leaked by hackers due to lax security practices.

If even binance let Iran military move money around,  we can be sure anyone can transfer anything in DEX or KYC free exchanges.

It is not all bad, as  those privacy focused services are also important to protect individual rights.

[examplens]

If even binance let Iran military move money around,  we can be sure anyone can transfer anything in DEX or KYC free exchanges.

It is not all bad, as  those privacy focused services are also important to protect individual rights.

Privacy-oriented services have never been a problem.
As HTX was given a high AML risk by one regulation and all coins related to this exchange, I can only assume what kind of chaos would arise if Binance were also on the sanctioned list because of something like this.

[colinistheman]

The more damning part of this is that Binance knew about all this movement and yet decided to let it happen anyway.
This is another reminder that KYC is just a sham, in order for governments to get all data about you, and tax you, while letting your data get leaked by hackers due to lax security practices.

If even binance let Iran military move money around,  we can be sure anyone can transfer anything in DEX or KYC free exchanges.

It is not all bad, as  those privacy focused services are also important to protect individual rights.

In many cases it is natural for the KYC thing to seem like just a high level eyewash or drama. All the data of us ordinary people is systematically extracted. However the smuggler can easily sneak out by building some kind of backdoor.

Whatever, I do not accept that this is a frivolous or unimportant thing. Even if it occasionally gets knocked down by tricks of the international level. But this strict rule has at least created a big tangle or friction for small hacker or criminal.

At the end of the day this whole story has shown us once again that where petty money and dirty games of geopolitics are involved the unwritten rule of this world is to bend the rules and regulations