The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on two Iranian nationals, Alireza Derakhshan and Arash Estaki Alivand, along with multiple front companies in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. The designations target a shadow banking network that facilitated over $100 million in cryptocurrency transactions tied to illicit Iranian oil sales since 2023, with funds funneled to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL).
The network utilized shell firms including Alpa Trading in Dubai and Alpa Hong Kong Limited to disguise financial flows, with connections to Hezbollah-affiliated financial operators and Syria's previously sanctioned Al-Qatirji Company. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley stated: "Iranian entities rely on shadow banking networks to evade sanctions and move millions through the international financial system."
This action follows Israel's September 2 move to blacklist 187 cryptocurrency wallets linked to the IRGC and represents an escalation of Washington's financial pressure campaign against Iran. Policy experts note that cryptocurrency has become "a core settlement rail" for Iran's sanctions evasion, with patterns including fiat converted into stablecoins like USDT or TRX, value moved through intermediary wallets to obscure trails, and funds off-ramped through exchanges with weak compliance oversight.