BitBank controller Babak Zanjani was first sanctioned in January
The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday sanctioned Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank, its developer, and three associates of the platform’s controller, accusing BitBank of being used to transfer payments collected from vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
BitBank is controlled by Babak Zanjani, a 52-year-old Iranian financier and business magnate whom the Treasury first sanctioned in late January on accusations of financially backing projects supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as the Iranian regime. The Treasury said Zanjani’s digital exchanges have processed large volumes of funds for IRGC-linked entities.
“Today’s designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond [the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s] reach,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
Also sanctioned were BitBank’s developer, Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, and three Zanjani associates: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, 69; Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein, 45; and Seyed Adel Heidari, 51.
The Treasury said BitBank has been used by the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority to transfer payments it received for vessel transits through the strait since the authority came under U.S. sanctions in June. The sanctions block all property and interests in property of those designated while generally prohibiting U.S. persons from doing business with them.
“The United States remains committed to denying the Iranian regime and the IRGC access to the resources they use to threaten regional stability, support terrorism and undermine international security,” State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott said in a statement.
The action is part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast, which the Treasury announced Aug. 24 with the goal of severing Iran from foreign sources of funds in an effort to squeeze Iran.
Since the war began Feb. 28, Iran has choked maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy shipping route, affecting global energy supplies. Despite repeated claims from Trump that the route is open, only a handful of vessels compared with pre-war levels are transiting each day.
Trump has long tried to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to reach a deal aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, after he unilaterally pulled the United States out of such a deal in 2018 during his first term. In recent months, Trump has applied sanctions and directed the U.S. military to attack Iran in an effort to regain freedom of navigation through the strait.