Families of victims from the October 7th attack in Israel are now suing cryptocurrency company Binance.
Binance is the world's largest crypto trading platform. Its founder was recently pardoned by President Trump.
The families of October 7th victims say Binance helped smooth the transfer of more than a billion dollars to the accounts of Hamas and other terror groups behind the attacks.
A 284-page lawsuit explains what plaintiffs believe was the facilitation of money to multiple foreign terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran's IRGC military wing and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Not only did they say that Binance facilitated the transfer to and from these accounts, but they also said when Binance found out that these accounts existed, it continued to enable them.
"When specific customers were designated or particular accounts were subject to seizure orders, Binance allowed those customers and accounts to shift the assets into other Binance accounts, thus negating the effect any blocking or seizing of the account," the suit reads.
The lawsuit lists hundreds of families as plaintiffs, many of them American. They range from survivors to the families of those who were murdered. Hersh Goldberg-Polin's family is part of the suit, as well as the families of Abigail Edan, who was kidnapped with her 6-year-old and 9-year-old siblings; and Ruby Chen, the father of the late Itay Chen.
"That financial platform that was created with no type of regulations was used for terrorist activities, and now the owners of that entity should be liable for that," Ruby Chen told Scripps News in a recent interview. "47 U.S. citizens were killed, and making sure that that does not happen again, and that platform is not used for the benefit of terrorist organizations wherever that might harm U.S. citizens."
Ruby Chen said the development should be a signal to Americans that such shadowy terror financing could affect anyone.
He said he hopes the Department of Justice takes the issues seriously, particularly in the case of Binance.
RELATED STORY | Binance founder Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months for allowing money laundering
The former CEO and co-founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, was already found guilty of money laundering and served four months in prison. After he left prison, he was pardoned by President Donald Trump.
President Trump co-founded a cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, with his sons and with his envoy Steve Witkoff and his sons. The company is thought to have done business with Binance that could amount to billions of dollars.
