Iran’s Strait of Hormuz toll booth ran through a bitcoin exchange, U.S. says
The U.S. Treasury sanctioned BitBank, a Tehran exchange it says moved hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin to the Revolutionary Guards and handled payments collected from ships buying passage through the world’s most important oil chokepoint.
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Summary
- The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Tehran-based cryptocurrency exchange BitBank and its software developer, alleging the exchange moved hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
- Treasury said BitBank also processed some fees collected by Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which has charged tankers $1 million to $2 million for “safe passage” through the Strait of Hormuz.
- The sanctions freeze BitBank’s property under U.S. jurisdiction and threaten foreign institutions that process its transactions with exclusion from the U.S. financial system, though Treasury identified no cryptocurrency wallet addresses.
