Canada’s Crypto Ties to Iran Hit a Wall: US Sanctions Eight Money-Exchange Firms 🪙

The US Treasury imposed financial sanctions on eight Canadian money-service companies accused of doing business with sanctioned Iranian entities, cutting the businesses off from the dollar-based financial system. The companies allegedly facilitated exchanges involving Iranian rials and other currencies for digital assets, enabling international transactions, the US Treasury Department said on Friday.

Treasury said the businesses facilitated transactions with sanctioned Iranian digital asset exchanges and with digital asset addresses associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Some of the entities have changed their names and addresses to evade detection, according to the statement, which added that the action was coordinated with FINTRAC, Canada’s financial intelligence unit.

“Canada cannot be a safe haven for illicit financial facilitators that provide sanctions evasion services to the Iranian regime and its proxies,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury will pursue and disrupt the Iranian regime’s financial channels anywhere in the world.”

The designations continue a US campaign to “disrupt the regime’s exploitation of digital assets to fund terrorism, human rights abuses, and attacks on US personnel and allies.” Cointelegraph reported in August that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, was targeting crypto exchanges facilitating the transfer of funds to Iran’s IRGC. Bessent said at the time that the US planned to “increase the economic pressure” on Iran, focusing on financial networks funding the country’s regime “in dollars, rials, or crypto.”

In a separate action on Friday, the US Rewards for Justice program offered as much as $20 million and possible relocation for information about Iran’s nuclear program, including its facilities, equipment and personnel. Iran’s lack of compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency on safeguards has led the agency to lose “continuity of knowledge” regarding Iran’s production of enriched uranium and components like centrifuges.