Exclusive: Senator questions DOJ and Treasury about the status of Binance monitors following $1.7 billion in Iran-linked crypto flows

(SeaPRwire) –   U.S. lawmakers continue to investigate Iran’s use of the Binance crypto platform. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent letters on Friday requesting details on the status of two monitors appointed to oversee the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and its compliance operations.

“I am writing out of concern over growing allegations that Binance maintains dangerously lax anti-money laundering controls,” Blumenthal stated in the letters addressed to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Spokespeople for both DOJ and FinCEN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

As part of a 2023 settlement with Binance over compliance failures, the U.S. government appointed two separate monitors, who report individually to DOJ and FinCEN, to ensure the exchange puts in place adequate measures to overhaul its compliance program. The monitorships, which launched in 2024, were part of a broader plea deal that required Binance to pay a $4.3 billion fine tied to its failure to implement proper anti-money laundering and sanctions oversight.

Binance has since worked to project a public image of corporate responsibility, but recent reports of Iran-linked crypto flows have pushed Blumenthal, alongside other Senate Democrats, to probe the crypto exchange and the Trump administration on whether the exchange’s internal operations match its public rhetoric.

Amid this public debate, Binance’s two monitors, whose roles include flagging any misconduct, have remained silent.

Frances McLeod, the Justice Department’s selected monitor and a founding partner at consulting firm Forensic Risk Alliance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sharon Cohen Levin, FinCEN’s appointed monitor and a partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, also did not immediately respond.

Is the Monitorship on Pause?

Blumenthal’s questioning follows reports from multiple outlets that Binance fired internal investigators who warned top executives that more than $1 billion flowed through the exchange to Iran-linked wallets. Binance has stated that the firings of the investigators were unrelated to their findings on Iranian flows, and that the crypto exchange upholds a rigorous compliance program. Spokespeople for the crypto exchange did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Blumenthal’s inquiry into the status of its monitors.

The senator’s letters also come after a 2025 Reuters report that stated the Justice Department had paused its corporate monitorships as part of an informal review. In March 2025, a judge approved DOJ’s request to end the monitorship of Glencore, the global mining company tied to a foreign bribery scheme. Later that year, DOJ also eliminated the requirement for aircraft manufacturer Boeing to retain its own independent monitor.

Critics of monitorships, the system where governments commission independent third parties to oversee companies that have broken the law, argue that the arrangements are costly burdens for corporations and simply not effective.

In 2013, a U.S. court ordered an antitrust monitor for Apple after ruling the tech giant participated in a price-fixing conspiracy. Other major high-profile companies that have been required to have monitors include Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen, and Walmart.