Robert Appleton Quoted in Fortune on Binance Firing Top Investigators Who Claim to Have Uncovered Evidence of Iranian Sanctions Violations

Co-Chair of Olshan’s White Collar & Government Investigations Practice Robert Appleton was quoted in a Fortune article entitled “Exclusive: Binance Fires Top Investigators Who Claim to Have Uncovered Evidence of Iranian Sanctions Violations.” The article reports that at least five investigators on Binance's compliance team were fired after uncovering evidence that entities tied to Iran had received more than $1 billion through the crypto exchange from March 2024 through August 2025, transactions that would potentially be in direct violation of U.S. sanctions, and follow an earlier plea of guilty in US District Court in 2023 to charges by the US Department of Justice involving the same Iran sanctions violations conduct. The firings, which also coincided with the departure of additional senior compliance staff, raise serious questions about Binance's commitment to the regulatory reforms it pledged as part of its landmark $4.3 billion DOJ settlement in 2023. Bob, who led numerous high profile Iran-related OFAC sanctions cases for more than 14 years at the DOJ, and currently significantly involved in the crypto investigations space, provided commentary on the  significance of these developments occurring under a monitorship and with internal investigators. The firings also come amid a broader political landscape shift, including President Trump's rollback of crypto oversight and his pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, raising further concerns about accountability in the digital asset space. "That's rather shocking that that happened under a monitorship with [Binance] internal investigators,” Bob told Fortune when interviewed about the case.