US Sanctions Iranian Crypto Exchange Behind 'Tehran Tollbooth'

The US Treasury sanctioned Iran's BitBank exchange, saying it funnelled hundreds of millions in Bitcoin toll payments from the Strait of Hormuz to the IRGC.

The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned BitBank, an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange it accuses of routing 'hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin' to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to The National, the exchange processed cryptocurrency payments for the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, the body running Iran's so-called Tehran tollbooth — a fee scheme, first signalled in March, that charges ships for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. OFAC also designated Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, BitBank's software developer, and three executives of the Dot One conglomerate, described by the Treasury as close associates of the exchange's owner.

BitBank is controlled by Babak Zanjani, a 52-year-old Iranian billionaire with one of the strangest career arcs in sanctions evasion. He became notorious under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for channelling hard currency from oil sales to Iran, was arrested in 2013, and was accused by Iran of fraudulently pocketing $2.8 billion. Sentenced to death in 2016 for embezzling from the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company, he saw his sentence commuted in 2024 and by 2025 had publicly re-emerged backing regime-linked evasion projects, per The National.

The designations form part of Operation Economic Outcast, the Treasury's broader campaign to isolate Iran by disrupting what it calls the country's global financial, commercial and logistical networks, from illicit oil trading to money exchanges, shipping, aviation and front companies. The National quotes Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying the 'designations of Iranian digital-asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond Ofac's reach,' adding: 'If you support the Iranian regime, the Department of the Treasury will sanction you.' The Treasury says Zanjani's enterprises operate as both public-facing commercial ventures and covert platforms for sanctions evasion and support for state-linked entities such as the IRGC.

For crypto readers, the case is a rare public blueprint of how a state allegedly industrialised digital-asset toll collection: front companies, an in-house exchange and a purpose-built software developer, all now named entities. It lands as the UK tightens its own pressure campaign — The National reports Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey will not renew a general licence covering Iranian banks such as Bank Sepah, Melli Bank plc, Bank Saderat, Persia International Bank and Bank Tejarat, and new UK licence applications from designated banks will be automatically rejected. The squeeze on exchanges is broader still: Decrypt reports BitMEX, the pioneer of the perpetual swap, shut down all exchange operations this week after a 2024 guilty plea and a 2025 presidential pardon of its co-founders.