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.

Pishtaz Simorgh, established in 2024 and registered at the same Tehran address as Bitbank, developed the exchange's trading software. It is a subsidiary of Dot One Value Creation Group, which OFAC had already designated.

The three individuals added to the Specially Designated Nationals list are Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, a Dot One executive described by the Treasury as Zanjani's principal lieutenant who managed most of his oil export and digital asset activity; Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein, a Dot One manager and chief executive of Pishtaz Simorgh; and Adel Heidari, vice chairman of Dot One's board.

All are subject to secondary sanctions, exposing non-US banks and businesses that deal with them to US penalties.

"Today's designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond OFAC's reach. If you support the Iranian regime, the Department of the Treasury will sanction you," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Zanjani was initially arrested in 2013 for his alleged role in a high-level corruption scandal in Turkey, where he was accused of embezzling $2.9bn with the help of Turkish-Iranian Reza Zarrab. He was said to be Zarrab’s partner in Iran to facilitate the payments. 

The Iranian and tri-national Zarrab were accused of smuggling bars of gold over the border in commissioned trucks as payment from Turkish oil companies during the halt on official payments under sanctions.

The then-Turkish interior minister Muammer Guler, economy minister Zafer Caglayan and EU affairs minister Egemen Bagis had been accused of taking bribes from the men. They all resigned following the leaks.  

The same OFAC action also added nine Cuban entities and three individuals to the sanctions list over the country's nickel industry and military research centres, and removed two Belarusian state enterprises, paint maker Lakokraska and timber concern Bellesbumprom. They were not connected to the Iranian targeting.