DOJ seeks $61m over Iranian oil proceeds routed through Binance accounts
A 14 September DOJ complaint targets $61m in USDT and alleges Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale used Binance accounts to move Iranian oil proceeds.
The US Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture complaint on 14 September 2026 seeking about $61 million in cryptocurrency. Prosecutors allege two companies used Binance trading accounts to launder proceeds from black-market Iranian oil sales for Iran’s government and military, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.
The companies are Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, both incorporated in Hong Kong. DOJ says they helped convert oil payments into cryptocurrency and route funds through a network that received and distributed more than approximately $1.5 billion in Iranian oil proceeds.
The action targets USDT held at ten cryptocurrency addresses. Its claims remain allegations subject to a court judgment.
Frozen in 2025, pursued in court in September
The 25-page complaint records 61,192,367.59 USDT across the targeted addresses. Its table dates the freezes to 15 June and 26 July 2025.
That chronology puts more than a year between the freezes and the new forfeiture filing. A seizure warrant dated 14 September 2026 authorises transfer to an FBI-controlled wallet.
Tether has a direct role in carrying that out. A footnote explains that the issuer will destroy the frozen tokens and issue replacements of equal value for transfer into US government custody.
The dollar payments behind the crypto trail
The filing also follows conventional bank transfers. Prosecutors allege a Hong Kong petroleum business, identified as Company-1, sent about $37.15 million to Hexa Whale in March and April 2024 and $443.49 million to Blessed Trust between November 2024 and March 2025. Those payments passed through US correspondent accounts at a bank headquartered in New York, according to the complaint.
Investigators describe at least seven linked addresses as Entity A. Their analysis uses transaction flows, wallet activation histories and movements of USDT and TRX to infer common control or coordination.
Binance’s account of the investigations
Binance addressed these same two companies in its March 2026 congressional response. That statement predates the September complaint.
The exchange said law enforcement contacted it in April 2025 about wallets potentially connected to terrorist financing. Binance said it supplied customer and transaction records in June, continued investigating and removed Hexa Whale on 13 August 2025.
It said a separate enquiry in summer 2025 led to further investigation and the removal of Blessed Trust in January 2026. Binance maintained that its investigations, account closures and cooperation with authorities demonstrated its compliance process working.
The September case now asks the court to award the targeted USDT to the United States, with the filing setting out both the alleged payment network and the mechanism for taking custody of its frozen funds.
