Crypto: Binance CEO Accuses Wsj Of Defamation Over Iran Sanctions Report
Two major news outlets published similar reports on Monday claiming that Binance had fired or suspended employees involved in an investigation into crypto going to Iranian entities.
Binance CEO Richard Teng took to social media on Tuesday to attack what he called “inaccurate reporting” by the Wall Street Journal regarding investigators at the crypto exchange uncovering $1.7 billion in digital assets moving to Iranian entities.
In a Tuesday X post, Teng said the report, published on Monday, contained “defamatory claims,” including a letter from Binance’s legal team “demanding immediate corrections and a full retraction of these false statements.”
“Your Article is false, seriously misleading to your readers, and defamatory of our client,” said the letter to WSJ editor-in-chief Emma Tucker from lawyers at Withers Bergman. “Our client has written to you directly seeking correction of the major matters of significant concern and we call upon you to act responsibly, and to remove your Article pending this correction, thus potentially avoiding the need for any further action.”
The article, by reporters Patricia Kowsmann, Angus Berwick, and Ben Foldy, claimed that Binance executives fired internal investigators who reported the exchange facilitated $1 billion in crypto to a “network funding Iran-backed terror groups.”
A New York Times article published the same day made similar claims, reporting that the investigators, four of whom were fired or suspended, had found “$1.7 billion had flowed from two Binance accounts to Iranian entities with links to terrorist groups, a possible violation of global sanctions.”
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According to Binance’s legal team, the WSJ reporters failed to reflect the crypto exchange’s responses to questions for the article, claiming that the publication had an “agenda already set.” Teng referred followers to a Sunday blog post on the exchange’s compliance program.
Fortune published a similar report on Feb. 13, making claims about violations of Iranian sanctions and Binance firing five employees involved in the investigation. The crypto exchange and Teng also pushed back against the report, calling the claims “categorically false.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, multiple media outlets reported that US Senator Richard Blumenthal had opened an inquiry into concerns about possible sanctions violations. In a letter to Teng, the Rhode Island Democrat is seeking records about t
Source: CoinTelegraph
