Cryptocurrency powerhouse Binance and its recently pardoned co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao are facing explosive allegations that they knowingly helped funnel more than $1 billion to Hamas and other U.S.-designated terror groups in the years leading up to the October 7 massacre, according to a sweeping 284-page lawsuit filed in federal court in North Dakota.

The complaint — brought by 306 American plaintiffs, including families of murdered and kidnapped dual Israeli-American citizens — accuses Binance of turning a blind eye to terror financing while publicly claiming compliance with U.S. sanctions. Those named in the lawsuit include freed hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin hy”d and slain IDF soldier Itay Chen hy”d, among others.

The filing alleges that Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, “deliberately failed to monitor inbound funds” tied to Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Instead of policing illicit accounts, the suit claims Binance allowed extremist-linked wallets to circulate and shuffle money to avoid detection.

“Binance allowed those customers and accounts to shift the assets into other Binance accounts, thus negating the effect of any ‘blocking’ or ‘seizing.’”

The lawsuit argues the practice was not accidental or negligent, but a calculated business model: “This demonstrates Binance’s deliberate and conscious effort to enable users to operate on the Binance platform and clearly helps facilitate financial crime on an industrial scale.”

The suit names Zhao personally, along with Binance executive Guangying Chen.

Zhao, who pleaded guilty to federal money laundering charges in 2023, served just four months in prison. In October, President Donald Trump granted him a full pardon, a move that outraged critics and stunned national security officials.

During a November 60 Minutes interview, Trump claimed he knew “nothing” about Zhao and snapped when pressed on the issue, threatening to walk out of the interview with CBS journalist Norah O’Donnell.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)