by Whitney Webb, Unlimited Hangout:
After Binance’s settlement with the DOJ and the removal of its longtime leader Changpeng Zhao, one of the most important figures at Binance – Chief Compliance Officer Noah Perlman – is poised to have an outsized role over the activities of and data held by the world’s largest crypto exchange. Despite this, Perlman’s past ties from scandals ranging from FTX to Jeffrey Epstein have been entirely ignored by the mainstream media.
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The Department of Justice’s and Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s recent announcement of its $4.3 billion settlement with cryptocurrency exchange Binance has jolted the digital finance world and sparked rumors that the massive exchange could soon face collapse roughly one year after the implosion of another massive exchange, FTX. Those criminal cases, which charged Binance with money laundering and failing to report suspicious transactions tied to terror groups and entities under U.S. sanctions, placed considerable blame on Binance’s former Chief Compliance Officer, Samuel Lim. Lim, who left the company in 2022, was subsequently replaced with Noah Perlman.
In that role, Perlman has clearly been a crucial part of Binance’s attempts to navigate the US government investigations targeting the exchange, including its recent settlement with the DOJ and CFTC as well as the exchange’s ongoing litigation with the SEC. Now, with Binance’s long-time head Changpeng Zhao, or “CZ,” stepping down as part of the DOJ settlement, Perlman is one of the few executives who has chosen to stay on to steer the world’s largest crypto exchange into the post-CZ era.
In his current role, Perlman will have even more power to decide to whom to withhold or offer access to Binance’s services and if, like other exchanges and major players in the crypto market, Binance will collaborate even more closely with the DOJ in requiring KYC protocols as well as helping law enforcement to seize bitcoin and other digital currencies it deems connected to “illicit” financing (something Perlman has been doing since he joined Binance). Perlman is also poised to work closely, perhaps more than any other Binance executive, with the government compliance monitor to be appointed to oversee Binance as part of its settlement with the DOJ.
Despite his more critical-than-ever role at the world’s largest crypto exchange, there has been surprisingly little interest among the media in looking deeper into Perlman, who boasts connections to some of the more mysterious aspects of the FTX collapse, controversies at the Winklevoss-owned exchange Gemini, and even notorious sex trafficker and financial criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
A Lawyer with a Famous Father
Noah Perlman is the son of the famous violinist Itzhak Perlman and attended Harvard University, graduating in 1991. He went on to attend Columbia Law School and after graduating in 1997, joined the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, a white-shoe law firm in New York deeply tied to political and financial power in the U.S. (e.g., Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell is one of its many influential alumni). After working there and then as a law clerk in the Eastern District of New York, Perlman became a federal prosecutor for the Department of Justice, where he held posts such as Special Coordinator for Crimes against Children during his five-year stint with the DOJ.
Perlman’s role as Special Coordinator for Crimes against Children is notable given his father’s apparently close relationship with a notorious sex trafficker of minors, Jeffrey Epstein. Itzhak Perlman flew on Epstein’s plane at least twice, in 1992 and 1993, where he accompanied Epstein to Michigan’s Interlochen Center for the Arts. Epstein, who once attended the school on a scholarship at age 14, began donating heavily to the school in 1990 and continued to donate through 2003. At least one of those two known flights involved Epstein bringing Perlman to Interlochen for a performance. From 1989 through the mid-1990s, Perlman performed annually at Interlochen’s Arts Camp, according to the school’s website.
According to Tim Ambrose, former Vice president of Institutional Advancement at Interlochen, Epstein initially built his now infamous lodge at Interlochen, sometimes referred to in media reports as a “lair to target girls,” in order to facilitate Perlman’s stays at the school:
We did not have a suitable facility for Mr Perlman to stay at that was handicap-accessible [Perlman lost the normal use of his legs after contracting polio as a child]. Epstein said he was interested in helping build a place for people to stay when they are on campus.
I got an architect and had them draw some plans, but I got a call from Jeffrey and he said: ‘I don’t want that’. He said: ‘I want to build a log cabin and I want it all handicap accessible so when Mr Perlman comes he is comfortable. I want a walk-in tub, I want countertops that are handicap accessible’. So, I got an architect and we came up with something.
Epstein approved of the new design and sent a cheque for up to £313,000 (between US$300,000 and US$400,000 at the time) for it to be built.
Around the same time Perlman had traveled on his plane with him to Interlochen and construction on the cabin began, Epstein was already using his privileged status as a donor to gain access to, recruit and abuse young girls attending the school. Perlman’s address and three phone numbers are also listed in Epstein’s infamous black book.
Itzhak’s son Noah Perlman left his role as a federal prosecutor focused on crimes targeting children in 2004 and then became general counsel for the New York division of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). After two years there, he joined Morgan Stanley, first as Global Head of Special Investigations and then as Global Head of Financial Crimes. There he focused on issues related to “money laundering and sanctions” and spoke publicly in 2018 about the need for better data “to track financial compliance” due to the spread of “populism and authoritarianism” and, in 2017, spoke of how much of his work at the time stood at the intersection of financial services and national security.
Joining the Crypto Industry
After years of straddling national security and Wall Street interests at Morgan Stanley, Perlman joined Gemini, the exchange co-founded by twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, in September 2019. He served first as the company’s Chief Compliance Officer. According to Perlman, his actions at the exchange were guided by the Winklevoss’ “vision that compliance really could be a competitive advantage” and that the company has long been focused “on security, regulation, compliance.” In August 2020 and until his departure this January, Perlman was Gemini’s Chief Operating Officer.
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