Citing an 80-page document that the crypto exchange Binance prepared in spring 2026 for the UAE's financial intelligence unit, the Wall Street Journal has revealed details of the activity of 21 accounts linked to the Babak Zanjani network on the exchange. According to Iran International's report on Saturday, 10 October 2026, the document shows that at least $67 million from two accounts of this network was transferred to wallets attributed to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The revelation comes as the US Department of Justice has confirmed it is examining Binance's compliance with its 2023 agreement with the US government and the possibility that transactions linked to the Islamic Republic passed through the platform.
Details of the Zanjani network on Binance
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sohrab Ouimakhmadov, a 47-year-old citizen of Tajikistan and longtime associate of Zanjani who once ran an airline for him in Tajikistan, held an account at Binance with a UAE residence card, as an employee of the diamond company BZ Diamond in Dubai, which is run under Zanjani's sister. His account received more than $10 million from wallets that the Israeli Ministry of Defense later attributed to the IRGC.
Ouimakhmadov also ran the account of the UAE branch of the crypto company Zedcex. Zedcex's trading volume on Binance reached about $830 million and, according to Binance's own report, $56 million of it went to wallets that Israel attributes to the IRGC. Israeli officials also say the payment app ZedPay in Istanbul helped convert the Islamic Republic's oil revenue into cryptocurrency. One of the tokens traded on Zedcex was called "NIOC", the same abbreviation as the National Iranian Oil Company.
According to the report, Binance reviewed Ouimakhmadov's transactions with the Iranian exchange "Aban Tether" for sanctions violations but continued the relationship with him, treating him as a special customer with lower fees. After Israel identified the wallets in September 2025, he first said he was sending the money to his daughter abroad and then spoke of buying African diamonds, without providing any documents. His account was frozen in October 2025 and the relationship with him was cut in May 2026. Binance says it has blocked transactions of accounts linked to sanctions violations and ended its relationship with their owners. Binance CEO Richard Teng had earlier said the Wall Street Journal's reports on this network were fundamentally inaccurate.
A Binance document shows that Babak Zanjani's network moved tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to wallets linked to the IRGC.
Sanctions and investigations
The US Treasury Department sanctioned Zanjani and Zedcex on 30 January 2026, and in July 2026 also placed ZedPay, its chief executive Mehdi Rezazadeh, Ouimakhmadov, Zanjani's sister and her partner on the sanctions list. The United Kingdom had sanctioned Zanjani in January–February 2025 for providing financial services to human rights violators in Iran. Swiss police, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI have also sought information about Zedcex since 2025.
The US Department of Justice investigation
Tyson Duva, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, confirmed this week that officials at the department are taking part in an investigation into Binance's compliance with the 2023 agreement, but did not say that Binance had violated the agreement. According to Voice of America, citing Bloomberg, no charges have so far been brought against Binance or its employees, and Binance has said it has "zero tolerance" for sanctions violations.
According to Cryptonews, the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan filed a civil complaint on 14 September 2026 seeking the forfeiture of about $61 million in Tether that, prosecutors say, came from the Islamic Republic's black-market oil sales and was meant to fund government and military bodies, including the IRGC. According to Binance's own internal review, about $126 million reached wallets linked to the Islamic Republic after several transfers, of which up to $24 million was linked to the IRGC.
In November 2023 Binance pleaded guilty to violating US banking and sanctions laws and agreed to pay a fine of about $4.3 billion. The investigations coincide with intensifying US financial pressure on the Islamic Republic; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced the "total isolation" campaign and the seizure of about $1 billion of the Islamic Republic's cryptocurrency, and earlier 17 shadow-fleet tankers of the Islamic Republic were sanctioned.
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first.