The United States has imposed sanctions on an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange controlled by sanctioned financier Babak Zanjani, accusing the platform of helping process payments linked to ships seeking safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. Treasury Department said the exchange, BitBank, had moved hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Treasury described the platform as an important part of Iran’s digital-asset infrastructure for evading international sanctions.
According to the department, BitBank was also used to transfer payments made to Iran’s newly established Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which Treasury said was connected to arrangements involving maritime transit through the strategic waterway.
Zanjani has previously been identified by U.S. authorities as a significant figure in Iran’s sanctions-evasion networks. Iranian authorities sentenced him to death in 2016 following an embezzlement case, but the sentence was later commuted in 2024. He subsequently returned to prominence as a financial backer of economic projects in Iran.
The latest sanctions were announced under the U.S. Treasury’s “Operation Economic Outcast,” a campaign aimed at disrupting Iran’s international financial, commercial and logistical networks.
The broader initiative has targeted a range of activities and entities associated with Iran, including illicit oil trading, financial intermediaries, currency-exchange businesses, shipping and aviation companies, as well as front companies.
The U.S. action against BitBank reflects Washington’s growing focus on cryptocurrency and digital-asset networks that it says are being used to move funds and circumvent sanctions.
