The United States on Friday sanctioned an unlicensed, multi-state cryptocurrency exchange, alleging it had processed millions of dollars in crypto transactions on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other groups linked to the Iranian state, according to a Reuters report.

The Dubai-based exchange, Shelbit, was identified as the hub of a $4 billion Iranian sanctions evasion scheme, by Reuters in a report published on July 31. The investigation found that Shelbit had moved crypto on behalf of Iran’s central bank and to addresses linked by the Israeli government to the IRGC, Reuters reported. According to the report, tens of millions of dollars in crypto that passed through Shelbit came from a suspected Iranian bitcoin mining operation, while many millions more were linked to an illegal gambling network allegedly operated by two high-profile Iranian social media influencers.

The US Treasury also sanctioned Siavash Kayvanpour, the expatriate Iranian who founded Shelbit and a network of other companies, for providing material support to the IRGC and Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Nobitex itself had been sanctioned by the US on June 2 for enabling the Iranian government to bypass Western sanctions, following an earlier Reuters investigation.

“Treasury will hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial networks that keep the regime afloat,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.

Separately on Friday, the US Treasury announced it had sanctioned Aban Tether, an Iran-based crypto exchange, for processing millions of dollars in transactions on behalf of sanctioned Iranian entities, including Nobitex, according to the report.

Shelbit’s website had reportedly been inactive for months, offering customers no way to carry out transactions, but the exchange continued processing money even during the US and Israeli war against Iran — reactivating the day after the Reuters investigation was published.

In a statement posted on its reactivated website on August 1, Shelbit “categorically rejected 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 organisation,” and said it had ceased operations in January 2026, Reuters reported. Neither Shelbit nor Kayvanpour immediately responded to Reuters’ request for comment.

The Treasury noted that “the Iranian regime’s willingness to allow this gambling network to operate highlights its hypocrisy and corruption,” the report said.

The sanctions designation comes shortly after Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) issued a notice stating that Shelbit was in violation of money-laundering and terrorism-financing laws. VARA said the exposure it had identified “extends beyond consumer protection to more egregious cross-border transactions with the propension to impact the integrity of the UAE financial system,” according to Reuters. VARA did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.