The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Shelbit Exchange and Aban Tether on August 7, accusing the two platforms of laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrency on behalf of entities tied to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The action falls under the Treasury's ongoing Economic Fury campaign targeting Iran's digital-asset financial rails.
OFAC named Siavash Kayvanpour, an Iran-born individual holding Dominica and Afghanistan citizenship, as the operator behind the scheme. Working through his firm SHPS Shelbit, Kayvanpour ran the exchange from bases in Georgia and the United Arab Emirates while also controlling Poland-registered Shelbit Technologies and two UAE entities, Crypto Home and NFT Home DMCC, according to Decrypt's reporting on the designation.
How the Money Moved
Treasury's case lays out a multi-step laundering trail: Iran-linked wallets sent more than $1 million in crypto to Shelbit, which in turn returned over $2 million to Iranian wallets and funneled another $2 million to Nobitex, an Iranian exchange Treasury had already sanctioned. Separately, Shelbit is accused of laundering tens of millions of dollars generated by a Persian-language online gambling network — funds Treasury says ultimately supported IRGC-linked financial activity.
Both newly sanctioned exchanges also processed transactions connected to a cluster of previously designated Iranian platforms, including Nobitex, Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex — exchanges Treasury blacklisted in a sweeping June 2 action that marked its largest move yet against Iran's digital-asset economy. Nobitex alone had handled more than half of all Iranian crypto inflows in 2025 before that designation, underscoring how quickly operators have tried to route around each successive round of sanctions.
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Treasury's Message
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the designation as a warning to any platform that facilitates Iranian financial flows regardless of currency. "Whether in dollars, rials, or crypto, Treasury will hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial" mechanisms funding the regime, Bessent said in a statement accompanying the sanctions.
A Widening Enforcement Campaign
The State Department is offering up to $15 million for information that helps disrupt IRGC financial networks, and Treasury estimates it has seized roughly $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets since the Economic Fury campaign began. With Shelbit and Aban Tether now added to the SDN list, U.S. persons and Nasdaq-adjacent exchanges are barred from processing transactions with either platform, adding two more names to a growing roster of Iran-linked exchanges cut off from the global crypto system.
