The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and some of its founders on Tuesday, accusing them of helping the Iranian government to evade sanctions, pay for militant activities and transfer wealth abroad.
The crypto exchange, Nobitex, has provided “significant support” to Iran’s government, before and during the war, the Treasury Department said in a statement. Through Nobitex, the Iranian government has been able to evade financial restrictions, support the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its proxy militias abroad, and move money internationally, the Treasury said.
“While Iran’s economy is in free fall, the regime has chosen to co-opt digital asset technologies for its own corrupt agenda, including evading sanctions and transferring wealth out of the country,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Nobitex could not be reached for comment on the Treasury action, which was announced late at night in Iran.
The latest economic shot fired by the United States came as progress in talks over a peace deal with Iran appeared stalled. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators on Tuesday that an interim deal with Iran “could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week.”
President Trump, in a social media post, said of the negotiations, “Where they lead, one never knows.”
The latest sanctions are part of a broader effort to financially squeeze the Iranian government in parallel with the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against the country that began in late February.
The United States has, since April, imposed sanctions on a number of Iranian people and entities, while also imposing a blockade on Iranian ports and on Iranian-linked ships globally. The blockades are meant to hit the Iranian government’s primary revenue stream, preventing oil sales and serving as the enforcement arm of the economic campaign.
According to Treasury, it has already frozen nearly half a billion dollars in “regime-linked cryptocurrency,” cracked down on banks worldwide that help Tehran evade restrictions, targeted networks supplying weapons and military components to Iran, and more.
The sanctions against Nobitex follow a Reuters investigation last month showing that the exchange had become key to an alternative financial system used by the Iranian government and the Revolutionary Guards.
Iran has long operated under a thicket of financial restrictions imposed by the United States and others, so many ordinary people, businesses and the government have resorted to cryptocurrency markets to bypass those barriers. Last year, nearly $7.8 billion in crypto circulated, according to a report from Chainalysis, a crypto tracking firm, with a rising share of that activity related to Guards transactions.
The Guards have “extensively leveraged digital assets” to finance “malign activities,” Chainalysis wrote.
Nobitex was founded by brothers from an elite clan with close ties to the current and former supreme leaders of Iran. The Reuters investigation found that, despite those ties, the exchange had long managed to evade the imposition of sanctions.
In addition to the company, Treasury also imposed sanctions on the brothers, Ali and Mohammad Kharrazi; another co-founder, Amir Hossein Rad, as well as other associated executives and several other crypto exchanges in Iran.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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