US sanctions Iranian crypto exchange Bitbank over Zanjani links to IRGC

The US Treasury has sanctioned Iranian digital asset exchange Bitbank, its software developer Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company and three executives, accusing them of moving hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on September 17.

The latest action is under Operation Economic Outcast, the whole-of-government campaign launched by the Trump administration on August 24 to sever the remaining financial lifelines of the Iranian government as the war with Iran enters its seventh month.

It targets the network of Babak Zanjani, the billionaire oil trader sentenced to death in 2016 for embezzling from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), whose sentence was commuted in 2024 and who has since rebuilt his operations around cryptocurrency.

According to the Treasury, Zanjani controls Bitbank and used it between June and July to transfer bitcoin worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the IRGC. He was previously targeted by the US earlier in January, according to previous reports. 

He has promoted the exchange on social media since at least 2024, as IntelliNews previously reported, and it has partnered with several companies in his sanctions-evasion network.