As the New York Times (NYT) reported Tuesday (July 28), Binance had been adopting a more cooperative approach with law enforcement following years of legal issues.
Then in April of 2025, the world’s largest crypto exchange quietly instituted a policy requiring law enforcement to send certain requests to foreign government agencies, which the report described as a “time-consuming process governed by international treaties.”
That change, as well as the departure of several top Binance compliance employees, has slowed some investigations in Europe and caused concerns in the U.S., the NYT found.
Binance told the news outlet that it hadn’t slowed its cooperation with law enforcement, and that the change was designed to make sure the company adhered to regulations and privacy laws when dealing with customer data.
However, the Times report added, investigators said the new policy had made it harder to combat financial crime.
The report cites the example of police officers from five European countries who took said they struggled to get information from Binance outside of cases involving terrorism, child sexual abuse materials or immediate threats to life.
American law enforcement is mostly exempt from having to send requests to foreign governments, three sources with knowledge of the policy told the NYT. However, Binance has in some cases asked state prosecutors to route requests through other countries, which has held back at least two investigations this year, according to sources familiar with the cases and messages reviewed by the news outlet.
Alona Katz, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, told the Times that while Binance was typically able to turn over information within hours, she was unable to get account records for some users based in the United Arab Emirates. Speed is critical in crypto cases, with criminals moving funds from account to account in a matter of seconds.
“How fast you get your records determines the outcome of your case,” she said. “It’s everything.”
According to the report, Binance last year fired or suspended several high-level compliance employees who had raised concerns about $1.7 billion that they said had flowed from Binance accounts to Iranian entities.
The company has disputed the workers’ findings and said that they were not disciplined for flagging compliance concerns, the report said, adding that several other senior compliance employees left Binance at the same time.
The report also notes that this is happening as the White House relaxes regulations on the crypto industry. In a memo last year, Todd Blanche, now the acting attorney general, said the administration would no longer regulate cryptocurrency exchanges but focus on criminals who abused them.
President Donald Trump also pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who had been jailed as part of the previous administration’s prosecution of Binance’s anti-money laundering deficiencies. Binance has also done business with World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm founded by Trump and his sons.
