WSJ Says Iranian Network Moved $850M Through Binance Accounts; CEO Teng Calls Report "Fundamentally Inaccurate"

Published October 11, 2026, 03:20 PKT. Based on the Wall Street Journal's October 8, 2026 investigation via Cointelegraph's reporting, TokenPost's account of Binance's internal report, and Binance CEO Richard Teng's October 9 public response.

An Iranian sanctions-evasion network ran about $850 million through 21 Binance accounts over two years, the Wall Street Journal reported on October 8, citing an 80-page internal report Binance itself prepared in April at the request of the United Arab Emirates' financial intelligence unit. The network was tied to Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, whom the United States re-sanctioned in January 2026, and at least $67 million from two of the accounts flowed to wallets identified as belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the report.

The 21 accounts and Babak Zanjani

Zanjani's firm Zedcex sat at the center. Its corporate Binance account processed nearly $830 million, with about $56 million withdrawn to wallets associated with the IRGC, TokenPost reported. Accounts belonging to Zanjani's sister, his romantic partner and a company director all operated from the same devices, the Journal found, and one high-value customer, Tajik national Sukhrob Oimakhmadov, received more than $10 million from IRGC-associated wallets starting in late 2023.

Binance initially kept Oimakhmadov on the platform under what it described as a risk-based compliance approach, despite earlier scrutiny over his dealings with Iranian exchange Aban Tether. The exchange blocked his account in October 2025 and formally removed him in May 2026, according to the reporting.

The Tehran logins Binance flagged but left open

The sharpest allegations concern what Binance did with its own warnings. The Journal reported that Binance's internal compliance team flagged the Zedcex account after detecting access from Tehran in late 2024. The account stayed open for more than a year after that, triggering over a dozen further internal alerts, and the exchange's own investigators recommended the accounts be shut down and reported to authorities. The accounts remained active, the report said.

The Journal also reported that Iran's central bank moved $107 million in crypto into Binance accounts in 2025, and that a foreign law-enforcement agency tracked roughly $260 million in direct transactions between Binance accounts and Iranian terrorist financiers during 2024 and 2025.

Teng's denial: "fundamentally inaccurate"

Binance CEO Richard Teng pushed back in a Friday post on X, calling the reporting "fundamentally inaccurate." Teng said Binance never permitted transactions with sanctioned individuals, that any flagged activity occurred before those individuals were placed under US sanctions, and that Binance had investigated the issues before the Journal contacted the company, adding that facts it provided were not included in the story.

The exchange also said it identified the sanction-linked activity months ago, restricted trading on all the accounts in question and later removed them, and that treating the network's total trading volume as money sent to the IRGC is "materially misleading," CoinTime reported.

A longer Iran paper trail

This is not the first time the Journal has pressed Binance on Iran. In February, the paper reported that Binance shut down an internal investigation into roughly $1 billion flowing through the platform to networks linked to Iranian proxy groups, which Binance denied. In March, it reported that the Justice Department was investigating whether Binance had been used to evade Iranian sanctions after its 2023 guilty plea, and Binance later filed a defamation lawsuit against the publication. Separately, the DOJ's criminal division confirmed on October 9 that it is reviewing whether Binance breached its $4.3 billion 2023 settlement, as MABOnChain reported on October 10, alongside the Southern District of New York's separate move to forfeit $61 million it says came from black-market Iranian oil sales.

None of the allegations in the Journal's new investigation have been proven in court, and no new enforcement action against Binance has been announced. But the details, drawn from the exchange's own internal reporting, add a fresh set of facts for the monitors installed under the 2023 plea deal, and for the DOJ review now underway, to weigh.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• The Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2026 investigation, via Cointelegraph's reporting, primary source for the $850 million network, the 21 accounts and the Tehran-access flags
• Binance's 80-page internal report to the UAE financial intelligence unit (April 2026), via TokenPost and Benzinga accounts, primary source for the $67 million IRGC figure and the Zedcex and Oimakhmadov details
• Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, October 9, 2026 post on X, primary source for the company's denial
• Cointelegraph, "Binance Denies WSJ Report Alleging $850M in Iran-Linked Crypto Transactions", secondary source
• TokenPost, "Binance Accounts Linked to Zanjani Moved About $850 Million", secondary source
• CoinTime, "Binance Responds to WSJ Investigation on Iran Sanctions", secondary source