US sanctions crypto exchange run by Iranian billionaire processing 'Tehran tollbooth' fees

A cryptocurrency exchange owned by an Iranian billionaire has been sanctioned by the US, which accuses it of processing toll payments from ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

BitBank is alleged to have routed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after receiving cryptocurrency payments for the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which runs the so-called Tehran tollbooth.

The exchange is controlled by Babak Zanjani, 52, who was sentenced to death in 2016 for embezzling millions from the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company.

His sentence was commuted in 2024 and by 2025, he had publicly re-emerged as a backer of regime-linked projects to evade sanctions.

In July, further sanctions were imposed against nine other firms in which Mr Zanjani is involved, including his Iran-based Dot One conglomerate.

Announcing the latest measures, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) said Mr Zanjani started using BitBank to “facilitate the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin to the IRGC” in June.

Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury, said the latest “designations of Iranian digital-asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond Ofac’s reach”.