OFAC Targets $600 Million Iranian Shadow Banking Network Using Cryptocurrency to Evade Sanctions
TL;DR
- OFAC designated Iranian monetary facilitators and their community of entrance firms for coordinating cryptocurrency transactions that profit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and Iran’s Ministry of Defense.
- The community facilitated over $100 million in cryptocurrency purchases instantly associated to Iranian oil gross sales between 2023 and 2025.
- The designation highlights Iran’s continued use of cryptocurrency to evade sanctions by means of refined shadow banking networks.
On September 16, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian monetary facilitators and their community of entrance firms throughout Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for coordinating cryptocurrency transactions that profit Iran’s army and protection equipment. This motion represents the most recent effort to disrupt Iran’s use of cryptocurrency and shadow banking to evade sanctions.
The community’s cryptocurrency operations
At the middle of as we speak’s motion are Iranian nationals Alireza Derakhshan and Arash Estaki Alivand, who coordinated the acquisition of over $100 million value of cryptocurrency associated to Iranian oil gross sales between 2023 and 2025. Furthermore, the addresses included in as we speak’s designation account for over $600 million in complete inflows, as a part of a fancy community of entrance firms throughout a number of jurisdictions to obscure the motion of funds. These are important volumes, comparable to these seen in different current OFAC designations of IRGC-QF proxy networks, together with Houthi financier, Sa’id al-Jamal, who was designated for laundering on behalf of the IRGC-QF in addition to facilitating Iranian oil shipments, as well as to a broader Houthi network facilitating Russian weapons and commodities commerce.
Notably, Alivand maintained connections with different beforehand designated entities, together with conducting cryptocurrency transfers on behalf of the Al-Qatirji Company, which has operated to facilitate Iranian oil gross sales, in addition to transactions with Hezbollah-associated money changer Tawfiq Muhammad Sa’id al-Law, who supplied Hezbollah entry to digital wallets for receiving IRGC-QF commodity sale proceeds.
Additionally, the Chainalysis Reactor graph beneath highlights the advanced internet of economic facilitators and intermediaries leveraged by the IRGC-QF to transfer funds all through numerous components of their proxy networks, together with al-Jamal, the Houthis, wallets recognized by Israel’s National Bureau of Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) as belonging to the IRGC-QF, as well as to direct interactions with mainstream Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges.
Evolving sanctions evasion ways
Today’s motion demonstrates the rising sophistication of Iran’s sanctions evasion ways, significantly in leveraging cryptocurrency and worldwide entrance firms to transfer funds on behalf of the IRGC-QF. This designation marks one more spherical of sanctions focusing on Iran’s shadow banking infrastructure because the implementation of most strain insurance policies.
The complexity of this community, spanning a number of jurisdictions and using each conventional entrance firms and cryptocurrency, highlights the challenges in detecting and disrupting fashionable sanctions evasion schemes. However, it additionally exhibits how the transparency of the blockchain presents unprecedented alternatives to establish and disrupt advanced networks facilitating sanctions evasion within the lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
The addresses from as we speak’s designation will be discovered on OFAC’s web site here and are being included beneath:
Arash Estaki Alivand:
- ETH: 0xe3d35f68383732649669aa990832e017340dbca5
- ETH: 0x532b77b33a040587e9fd1800088225f99b8b0e8a
- TRX: TYDUutYN4YLKUPeT7TG27Yyqw6kNVLq9QZ
- TRX: TRakpsE1mZjCUMNPyozR4BW2ZtJsF7ZWFN
- TRX: TQ5H49Wz3K57zNHmuXVp6uLzFwitxviABs
Alireza Derakhshan:
- ETH: 0xdb2720ebad55399117ddb4c4a4afd9a4ccada8fe
- TRX: TSxAAo67VTDgKT537EVXxdogkJtk9c6ojz
We have up to date our screening options to embrace all designated people and entities from as we speak’s motion and can proceed monitoring for added cryptocurrency addresses and entities linked to this community.
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