Congress continues to investigate Iran’s use of Binance. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent letters Friday asking for details on the status of two monitors tasked with overseeing the world’s largest crypto exchange and its compliance operations.
“I write with concern about the growing allegations of dangerously lax money laundering prevention by Binance,” Blumenthal said in the letters to the Justice Department and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Spokespeople for the DOJ and FinCEN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As part of a 2023 settlement with Binance over compliance deficiencies, the U.S. government installed two observers who report separately to the DOJ and FinCEN to ensure that the exchange is taking appropriate action to revise its compliance program. The surveillance measures, which began in 2024, were part of a larger plea deal in which Binance paid a $4.3 billion fine for failing to enforce proper money laundering and sanctions oversight.
Since then, Binance has tried to project an image of corporate responsibility, but recent reports about Iranian crypto flows have prompted Blumenthal — along with other Senate Democrats — to investigate the cryptocurrency exchange and the Trump administration over whether the exchange’s internal operations are consistent with its public rhetoric.
Amid the public back-and-forth, Binance’s two observers, whose duties include reporting misconduct, remained silent.
Frances McLeod, the Justice Department’s chosen observer and founding partner of the consulting firm Forensic Risk Alliance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did Sharon Cohen Levin, a FinCEN monitor and partner at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
Monitorship paused?
Blumenthal’s questioning follows several Points of sale reported that Binance fired internal investigators who warned top executives that over $1 billion had flowed through the exchange to Iran-linked wallets. Binance said the investigators’ firings had nothing to do with their findings about Iranian money flows and that the crypto exchange maintains a strict compliance program. Spokespeople for the crypto exchange did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Blumenthal’s inquiry about the status of its monitors.
The senator’s letters also follow a 2025 report Reuters It said the Justice Department had paused its corporate surveillance operations as part of an informal review. In March 2025, a judge granted the Justice Department’s request to end oversight of Glencore, the international mining company implicated in a foreign bribery scheme. Later this year, so did the DOJ scrapped the requirement for aircraft manufacturer Boeing to have its own independent monitor.
Critics of surveillance, or when governments hire independent third parties to monitor a company that breaks the law, argue that they are doing so expensive represent a burden for companies or simply not effective.
In 2013, a U.S. court placed Apple on antitrust watchdogs after ruling that the tech giant was involved in a price-fixing conspiracy. Other top companies receiving monitors include: Deutsche Bank, VolkswagenAnd Walmart.
