When Binance pleaded guilty to U.S. sanctions and anti-money-laundering violations in late 2023 and paid a $4.3 billion settlement, one of the central commitments of that deal was a genuine overhaul of its compliance operation. The man hired to lead that overhaul was Noah Perlman, a former assistant U.S. attorney who joined the exchange as global chief compliance officer in January 2023. Three years on, a Bloomberg investigation has revealed that Perlman is discussing his departure with management, and that several of the senior compliance staff he built his team around have already left. The departures are concentrated in precisely the units that matter most for the exchange’s regulatory standing: sanctions enforcement, financial crime monitoring, and internal investigations.
What Bloomberg’s Reporting Revealed
When Binance pleaded guilty to U.S. sanctions and anti-money-laundering violations in late 2023, rebuilding its compliance operation was key to the deal. The exchange had hired Noah Perlman, a former assistant U.S. attorney, as chief compliance officer to lead teams handling sanctions enforcement, financial crime monitoring, and investigations. Three years later, Perlman is looking to leave sometime this year or next and has begun discussions with management about his departure. Binance said Perlman has no exit date, no identified successor, and is fully committed to the work ahead.
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Among the officials who have recently left the company are Peter Van Logtenstein, who led a global investigations unit, and Inga Petrauskaitė, a financial crime investigations team lead, both of whom departed in March. Erin Fracolli, global head of special investigations, departed in January, while Jarek Jakubcek, head of intelligence and investigations in Asia Pacific, left in February. An internal organisation chart reviewed by Bloomberg confirmed that the departures included staff who handled sanctions, investigations, and financial crime monitoring. Binance said the departures reflect natural turnover and performance management, and that its commitment to compliance remains fully intact.
The Iran Scrutiny Running in the Background
The compliance departures are not happening in isolation. They coincide with a period of intensifying scrutiny over Binance’s exposure to Iran-linked accounts. According to multiple sources and internal documents viewed by Fortune, investigators on Binance’s compliance team uncovered evidence that entities tied to Iran had received more than $1 billion through the exchange from March 2024 through August 2025. The firings of those investigators coincided with a number of U.S. political developments that benefited Binance, including President Trump’s rollback of crypto oversight and his decision in October to grant founder Changpeng Zhao a pardon for his 2023 guilty plea.
Bloomberg also noted that Binance is under scrutiny from lawmakers and blockchain analysts due to indications that accounts linked to Iran used the platform to avoid U.S. sanctions. Binance said as a matter of policy it cannot comment on ongoing investigations, and that employees who breach company policy are subject to dismissal. The company has not confirmed or denied the specific Iran-related allegations.
What Binance Says About Its Compliance Record
Binance has pushed back firmly on the narrative that the departures represent a weakening of its compliance infrastructure. The company has repeatedly pointed to growing headcount and investment in compliance since 2023, saying it expanded compliance-related staff by more than 30% and cut its direct exposure to illicit activity by 96% between January 2023 and June 2025. Perlman himself said in March that Binance had built a system that does not just react to threats, it anticipates them, pointing to the processing of over 71,000 law-enforcement requests and the facilitation of approximately $131 million in confiscations linked to illicit activity.
Those claims have been challenged by a recent Financial Times investigation, which found that Binance continued to allow suspicious accounts tied to terror financing and other red flags to operate even after the 2023 plea agreement. The exchange disputes those findings and points to its internal metrics showing sanctions-related exposure fell from 0.284% in January 2024 to just 0.009% in July 2025, a reduction of nearly 97%.
Why These Departures Matter Beyond Binance
These exits arrive as Binance compliance remains under the spotlight across multiple regions, where supervisors are examining how large platforms manage risk in complex cross-border flows. Both Van Logtenstein and Petrauskaitė worked in investigations functions that are central to an exchange’s ability to identify and escalate suspicious activity. Sustained departures from investigative leadership roles may raise fresh concerns about the resilience of Binance’s internal oversight.
For the broader crypto industry, the Binance compliance story carries a warning that is relevant to every exchange operating under a consent decree or post-settlement monitorship. The human infrastructure of compliance matters as much as the technology. When experienced investigators who understand the specific risk typologies, the regulatory relationships, and the internal culture of an organisation leave in clusters, it takes time to rebuild that institutional knowledge, regardless of how many new staff are hired to replace them.
Competitors are watching how Binance adapts its governance, staffing, and technology stack to meet evolving standards on sanctions screening and money laundering prevention. The latest departures also illustrate the intense demand for experienced compliance talent across the broader digital asset industry. The same expertise that makes a senior sanctions investigator valuable at Binance makes them immediately hireable at a traditional bank, a rival exchange, or a regulatory agency.
What Users Should Know
For Binance’s 300 million users, the compliance departures do not represent an immediate risk to their funds or accounts. The exchange continues to operate normally and processes billions of dollars in daily trading volume. However, users operating in jurisdictions with heightened regulatory sensitivity, or those holding accounts that interact with complex cross-border flows, should be aware that the regulatory environment around Binance is actively evolving.
The next significant milestone to watch is whether Perlman’s departure is formalised and who Binance appoints as his successor. The choice of his replacement will signal more clearly than any press release whether the exchange intends to maintain the post-settlement compliance posture it committed to in 2023, or whether the institutional culture is shifting in a direction that regulators in the United States, the EU, and the UK will find less reassuring.
