October 7 families’ lawsuit says Binance CEO, whom Trump pardoned, facilitated $1 billion in payments to Hamas and its allies

JTA – The families of victims of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel filed a lawsuit against the cryptocurrency fund Binance and its chief executive, claiming they facilitated more than $1 billion (R17.1 billion) in funding to the terror group and others behind the attacks. 

The latest lawsuit against Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao comes one month after he was pardoned by United States President Donald Trump for his November 2023 conviction on violating anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws. Zhao, who pleaded guilty, had been sentenced to four months in prison, and Binance paid more than $4.3 billion (R73.7 billion) in fines. 

When asked about the pardon earlier this month on 60 Minutes, Trump distanced himself from Zhao and Binance, which struck a $2 billion (R34.3 billion) deal with the Trump family’s crypto venture last spring. 

“I don’t know who he is,” Trump said of Zhao. “I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.” 

The complaint, filed on Monday, 24 November, in US federal court in North Dakota, lists 306 American plaintiffs and their family members who were killed, injured, or taken hostage on 7 October or in other subsequent terror attacks. 

They include the families of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli hostage who was murdered by Hamas in Gaza, and Itay Chen, an American-Israeli soldier whose body was returned by Hamas earlier this month. 

The lawsuit joins a growing list of legal cases seeking redress for the families and victims of the 7 October attacks, including one filed by the Anti-Defamation League in September against eight foreign terrorist groups for their efforts in orchestrating the attacks. 

The complaint accuses Binance of “knowingly, wilfully, and systematically” assisting Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to move more than $1 billion through its crypto platform, including more than $50 million after 7 October. 

It also accuses Binance’s conduct of being “far more serious and pervasive” than what the federal government prosecuted in its November 2023 investigation. 

“To this day, there is no indication that Binance has meaningfully altered its core business model,” the complaint read.