US sanctions Dubai crypto exchange for aiding Iran’s IRGC, following Reuters report

The United States sanctions an unlicensed multi-state cryptocurrency exchange, alleging it processed millions of dollars of crypto for Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other groups linked to the Iranian regime.

The designation follows a Reuters investigation published on July 31 that identified the Dubai-based exchange, Shelbit, as the hub of a $4 billion Iranian sanctions evasion scheme. The investigation found that Shelbit moved crypto on behalf of Iran’s central bank, one of the world’s largest illegal online gambling networks, and to addresses linked by the Israeli government to the IRGC.

The US Treasury also sanctions the expatriate Iranian who founded Shelbit and a network of other companies, Siavash Kayvanpour, for providing material support to the IRGC and Nobitex, Iran’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. The US sanctioned Nobitex on June 2 for enabling the Iranian government to circumvent Western sanctions, also after a Reuters investigation.

“Treasury will hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial networks that keep the regime afloat,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent says in a statement.

Shelbit’s website had been down for months, with no way for customers to carry out transactions, but the exchange continued to process money, even during the US-Israeli war against Iran. The site reactivated the day after the Reuters investigation was published.

“Shelbit LLC categorically rejects any suggestion that the company knowingly participated in money laundering, terrorist financing, illegal gambling activity, sanctions evasion, or activity on behalf of any sanctioned, military, or governmental organization,” Shelbit said in a statement on its reactivated website on August 1. Shelbit also said it had ceased operations in January 2026.

Shelbit and Kayvanpour do not immediately respond to a request for comment.