- OFAC designated Tehran-based crypto exchange BitBank on 17 September, alleging financier Babak Zanjani used it to move hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the IRGC between June and July.
- Software developer Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company and three Zanjani associates were designated alongside the exchange under Executive Order 13902, which carries secondary sanctions exposure.
- Treasury says the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, designated in July, has used BitBank since June to pass Strait of Hormuz transit payments to the Iranian regime.
US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Tehran-based cryptocurrency exchange BitBank on Thursday, alleging Iranian financier Babak Zanjani used the platform to move hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps between June and July.
OFAC also designated Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, the exchange’s software developer and a subsidiary of Zanjani’s Dot One Value Creation Group, along with three men Treasury links to the financier’s network: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, who allegedly brokered digital asset transactions that ultimately reached the IRGC; Dot One manager and Pishtaz Simorgh chief executive Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein; and Dot One board vice chairman Seyed Adel Heidari.
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The designations fall under Executive Order 13902, which targets Iran’s financial sector and exposes foreign institutions dealing with the designees to secondary sanctions.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated: “Today’s designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond OFAC’s reach.”
The action runs under Operation Economic Outcast, the economic pressure campaign against Iran and its enablers that Bessent announced on 24 August.
Hormuz Transit Payments Flagged
Treasury said the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, an Iranian maritime services firm it designated on 29 July, has used BitBank since June to transfer payments it received on to the regime. Reuters reported the scheme processes payments from ships seeking safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
According to the release, BitBank was established in 2024, operated as a “priority digital asset venture” in Zanjani’s network, and was promoted by the financier on social media. The new sanctions listings carry no cryptocurrency wallet addresses, unlike the Bank Markazi entries that anchored this year’s Tether freezes.
OFAC first designated Zanjani on 30 January alongside UK-registered exchanges Zedcex and Zedxion, accusing him of money laundering for the IRGC, and followed on 24 July with sanctions on his Dot One conglomerate.
Iranian courts sentenced him to death in 2016 for embezzling from the National Iranian Oil Company, commuted the sentence in 2024, and he re-emerged the following year backing government-linked economic projects.
The BitBank action extends a campaign that has already designated Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex, described by Treasury as Iran’s four largest crypto exchanges, and seized or froze about US$1 billion (AU$1.4 billion) in Iranian-linked crypto by May, pressure that has coincided with Iran’s broader shift into digital assets. Neither BitBank, Zanjani nor the Iranian government had publicly responded at the time of writing.
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