At a glance

  • The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Friday 6 Nov designated eight Canada-based money services businesses that it says exchange Iranian rials for digital assets and move money into and out of Iran, according to a Treasury press release.
  • The sanctions list entries include six Tron (TRX) addresses tied to four of the firms, which means US persons must now block assets connected to those wallets and report them.

The action is part of Operation Economic Outcast, the campaign Treasury launched in August against the Iranian regime’s financial channels, including what the department calls Tehran’s use of cryptocurrency “as a tool of choice for sanctions evasion”.

Who was designated

OFAC named Diverse Trade Inc (Million Exchange), 1380079 BC Ltd and its affiliate Top PC Technician Inc (both doing business as Amin Exchange), NIA Nations Currency Ltd, 2397639 Ontario Ltd (Farah Exchange), CCC Inc, B Galaxy Inc (Cryptoyal) and Darvish Exchange. The entries list addresses in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec.

All eight were designated under Executive Order 13902, which targets Iran’s digital asset sector among others. The list entries flag secondary sanctions risk, meaning non-US firms that deal with them could also face US penalties.

What Treasury alleges

Treasury says addresses tied to several of the firms transacted with Iranian exchanges that OFAC sanctioned earlier this year: Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex on 2 Jun, and Aban Tether Exchange and Shelbit on 7 Aug. It says others sent or received crypto worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to or from addresses it associates with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or with terrorism.

The department also says several of the businesses laundered drug proceeds by turning cash into crypto, including for Ryan Wedding, a Canadian drug trafficker already under OFAC sanctions, who it says was taken into custody in January. “Canada cannot be a safe haven for illicit financial facilitators,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release.

These are Treasury’s allegations, made in an administrative designation rather than a court ruling. CryptoWatchDesk found no public response from the companies.

What a designation does

A designation freezes any property of the listed firms that is in the US or held by US persons, and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Entities owned 50% or more by designated persons are blocked automatically. OFAC said the action was coordinated with FinCEN, Canada’s financial intelligence unit FINTRAC, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The same day, FinCEN used a separate statute in FinCEN’s order cutting MEXC Global off from U.S. banks, citing alleged Iran-linked flows. Background on how dollar stablecoins circulate inside Iran is in how Tether became Iran’s rationed digital dollar.

What happens next

OFAC designations take effect immediately. Treasury says some of the firms remain operational and have changed names and addresses to avoid detection, so further listings are possible.

Separately, Treasury said the Financial Action Task Force agreed at its plenary in Paris the previous week to review jurisdictions with long-standing weaknesses in crypto oversight. Decision points are due at the next plenary. This is not legal advice.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.