The U.S. federal court dismissed the lawsuit against Binance and Changpeng Zhao related to terrorism

A federal judge in Manhattan, Jeannette Vargas, dismissed a civil lawsuit that sought to hold Binance and its founder CZ accountable, accusing their trading activities of aiding terrorist organizations in carrying out global attacks.

The judge found that the 535 plaintiffs (including victims and their families) failed to reasonably explain that the defendants "intentionally conspired with the terrorist attacks, participated in their execution, or ensured the success of the attacks through their actions." The plaintiffs alleged that the attacks occurred between 2017 and 2024 and were carried out by external terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, ISIS, Kata'ib Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Al-Qaeda, attempting to attribute hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency and transactions with Iranian users to Binance and CZ.

The judge noted that while Binance and CZ may have some awareness of the potential for terrorist financing through the exchange, their relationship with terrorist organizations was limited to "their or their affiliates' accounts on Binance and trading in a fair manner." The judge also criticized the plaintiffs' 891-page, 3,189-paragraph complaint as "entirely unnecessary," but allowed for amendments. A Binance spokesperson stated, "The court correctly dismissed these baseless allegations. Binance strictly adheres to compliance requirements and has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal activities on the platform." CZ also mentioned that the plaintiffs were attempting to leverage Binance's acknowledgment in November 2023 of violating anti-money laundering and sanctions laws and paying a $4.32 billion penalty to seek triple damages.

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