US targets Iranian crypto exchange BitBank over Strait of Hormuz payments

The US has imposed sanctions on BitBank, an Iranian crypto exchange controlled by sanctioned financier Babak Zanjani, alleging that the platform processed payments associated with safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

The action, announced Thursday, targets the exchange over its alleged involvement in financial activity tied to the strategically important maritime route.

Treasury identified BitBank as a key part of Babak Zanjani’s digital asset-based sanctions-evasion network and said the exchange was used to transfer payments made to Iran’s Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority.

The sanctions further expand the US campaign against Zanjani, who was sentenced to death in 2016 for embezzlement and whose sentence was commuted in 2024. Treasury said Zanjani re-emerged the following year as a supporter of Iranian government economic projects.

In July, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned four individuals and nine entities as part of an effort to further dismantle Babak Zanjani’s Iranian sanctions-evasion network, targeting his Dot One conglomerate and the overseas infrastructure supporting his Zedcex and Zedxion crypto exchanges.

Alongside BitBank, the latest action sanctions Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, the software developer behind the exchange, as well as three close Zanjani associates, including Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein and Seyed Adel Heidari.

Treasury said the designations fall under Operation Economic Outcast, which targets disrupting Iran’s global financial, commercial and logistical networks.

Treasury said Zanjani’s businesses have operated both as public-facing commercial ventures and as covert financial platforms supporting sanctions evasion and Iranian state-linked entities.