irgc

According to a report by the WSJ, a previously undisclosed internal investigation report from Binance shows that Iranian financier Babak Zanjani used affiliated companies, shell companies, and multiple trading accounts to transfer funds through Binance, establishing a funding channel for the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to evade Western sanctions. The related network involves 21 individual and corporate trading accounts, with a total trading volume of approximately $850 million, of which at least $67 million flowed from two accounts to wallets associated with the IRGC.The report indicates that Tajik businessman Sukhrob Oimakhmadov, classified as a "high-value customer" by Binance, received over $10 million through his account, with sources including digital wallets later identified by the Israeli Ministry of Defense as belonging to the IRGC. The cryptocurrency platform Zedcex, associated with Zanjani, had a total trading volume close to $830 million, with approximately $56 million withdrawn to related wallets. The network also involves the Turkish payment company ZedPay, as well as the cryptocurrency token USDZ used for trading.Binance stated that it has identified the related activities and taken measures, with all accounts associated with sanction violations being restricted from trading and gradually closed. The company also emphasized that the total trading volume of accounts does not equal the actual funds flowing into the IRGC and acknowledged past procedural issues in internal approvals and execution timeliness. The U.S. Department of the Treasury had previously imposed sanctions on Zanjani and related companies and individuals.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against the Tehran-based cryptocurrency exchange BitBank, stating that the platform transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran. OFAC stated that BitBank is controlled by Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, who was designated in January of this year, and that he used the platform to complete transfers between June and July, with this designation made under Executive Order 13902.The sanctions also cover three executives from BitBank's software developer Pishtaz Simorgh and its parent company Dot One. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that using cryptocurrency to finance the Iranian regime is well within OFAC's jurisdiction. OFAC also mentioned that Hormuz Safe, an entity selling passage security in the Strait of Hormuz, has been receiving payments through BitBank since June; this entity was sanctioned in July. OFAC did not disclose the relevant wallet addresses.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank, accusing it of helping to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the IRGC.The action also targeted the developers of the exchange and three associates of the Iranian financier Babak Zanjani.

According to Cointelegraph, Nominis analysis indicates that some of the "Iran-related" crypto wallets recently seized and frozen by the U.S. OFAC may not exhibit on-chain behavior characteristics consistent with the past operational patterns of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), suggesting the involvement of other state-level actors.Previously, the U.S. Treasury stated that over $340 million, totaling nearly $500 million in Iran-related crypto assets, had been frozen in the "Operation Economic Fury." Nominis CEO Snir Levi noted that historically, IRGC-related wallets typically spread funds across multiple addresses, maintain low balances in single wallets, avoid long-term holdings, and employ complex operations to reduce the risk of being frozen; however, the wallets that were seized this time show significant differences in their funding structure and behavior patterns.He believes this raises a critical question: how much of the frozen $340 million in assets is directly controlled by the IRGC, and how much involves broader infrastructures that may even overlap with financial networks of other countries.Levi also pointed out that organizations, including the IRGC and potential state-level actors from China, are continuously upgrading their use of blockchain infrastructure, and traditional static risk control labels are no longer sufficient; behavioral analysis and address clustering are becoming increasingly critical.