The USA on Friday sanctioned an unlicensed multi-state cryptocurrency trade, alleging it processed tens of millions of {dollars} of crypto for Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and different teams linked to the Iranian state.
The designation follows a Reuters investigation printed on July 31 that recognized the Dubai-based trade, Shelbit, because the hub of a $4 billion Iranian sanctions evasion scheme. The investigation discovered that Shelbit moved crypto on behalf of Iran’s central financial institution, one of many world’s largest unlawful on-line playing networks, and to addresses linked by the Israeli authorities to the IRGC.
The US Treasury additionally sanctioned the expatriate Iranian who based Shelbit and a community of different corporations, Siavash Kayvanpour, for offering materials assist to the IRGC and Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency trade. The US sanctioned Nobitex on June 2 for enabling the Iranian authorities to avoid Western sanctions, additionally after a Reuters investigation.
“Treasury will search out and dismantle the illicit monetary networks that preserve the regime afloat,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent stated in an announcement.
Additionally on Friday, the US Treasury introduced it had sanctioned Aban Tether, an Iran-based crypto trade, for processing tens of millions of {dollars} of transactions for sanctioned Iranian entities together with Nobitex.
Shelbit’s web site had been down for months, with no method for purchasers to hold out transactions, however the trade continued to course of cash, even in the course of the US and Israeli battle towards Iran. The location reactivated the day after the Reuters investigation was printed.
“Shelbit LLC categorically rejects any suggestion that the corporate knowingly participated in cash laundering, terrorist financing, unlawful playing exercise, sanctions evasion, or exercise on behalf of any sanctioned, navy, or governmental group,” Shelbit stated in an announcement on its reactivated web site on August 1. Shelbit additionally stated it had ceased operations in January 2026.
Shelbit and Kayvanpour didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Tens of tens of millions of {dollars} of the crypto that handed by means of Shelbit got here from a suspected Iranian bitcoin mining operation, which mints new digital cash. Many tens of millions of {dollars} extra have been linked to the unlawful playing community operated by two high-profile Iranian social media influencers, Reuters reported.
“The Iranian regime’s willingness to permit this playing community to function highlights its hypocrisy and corruption,” Treasury stated within the assertion printed on its web site.
The OFAC designation comes quickly after Dubai’s Digital Belongings Regulatory Authority, or VARA, issued a discover saying Shelbit was in violation of money-laundering and terrorism financing legal guidelines.
“The publicity recognized by VARA extends past client safety to extra egregious cross-border transactions with the propension to affect the integrity of the UAE monetary system,” VARA stated in a discover on its web site on July 24, shortly after Reuters approached the authority for remark.
VARA didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The IRGC is a US-designated terrorist group.
