Richard Teng, co-CEO of Binance, said on YouTube that a recent Wall Street Journal report misrepresents the company’s compliance program and incorrectly suggests it has ignored sanctions obligations.
The issue arose after The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Binance Fired Staff Who Flagged $1 Billion Moving to Sanctioned Iran Entities.” According to Binance Holdings Limited, through law firm Withers Bergman LLP, the company sent a letter dated Feb. 24, 2026, disputing the story as “false,” “seriously misleading,” and “defamatory.” The letter urged an immediate correction or retraction and asked the publication to remove the piece pending correction according to Teng’s post.
“Before this role, I spent more than two decades as a financial services regulator. I sat on the other side of the table and I know what real proper functioning compliance should look like and how seriously it has to be taken. Binance has paid a heavy price for compliance shortfall in the past. We have since expended great care and extraordinary resources to get our compliance onto a strong footing, and our efforts are evident. That’s why I could not help but take the recent media allegations about Binance to heart. We welcome good-faith scrutiny, but these claims are not there,” Teng stated on Binance’s YouTube channel.
According to its website, Binance says it has pursued “structural” compliance reforms over the past two years. These include expanded screening and transaction monitoring, investing “hundreds of millions of dollars” in compliance infrastructure, growing its compliance team, and strengthening governance independence and board oversight. The company positions compliance as a core operating priority according to its official blog. Binance also reports that its share of total exchange volume tied to sanctions-related activity dropped from 0.284% in January 2024 to just 0.009% in July 2025—a decrease of nearly 97%. The company attributes this drop to stronger sanctions screening and monitoring controls.
In addition to internal reforms, Binance said it supported law enforcement efforts such as assisting Royal Malaysia Police in tracing crypto ransom payments during a cross-border kidnapping case in 2024. Investigators used blockchain analysis tools provided by Binance to help recover $1.6 million out of $4.5 million paid in ransom as reported by Binance.
Founded in 2017, Binance describes itself as the world’s largest digital asset exchange by user base and trading activity. Its platform includes spot and derivatives markets along with payment tools and custodial services according to company information.
