$61M Crypto Seized in Iran Oil Trade Sanctions Crackdown

US authorities have filed a civil forfeiture case against approximately $61 million in cryptocurrency allegedly linked to black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian crude oil and petroleum products. The funds are believed to have been laundered through trading accounts on Binance by two Chinese companies, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale.

The Department of Justice claims that these companies used their services to funnel money to the Iranian government, its agents, and proxies, including entities connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The alleged scheme involved converting fiat currency into cryptocurrency using services that sometimes involved US-based issuers.

Prosecutors say Blessed Trust presented itself as a wealth-management or digital-asset custodial business while providing fiat-to-crypto conversion services for Iran-linked transactions. Hexa Whale allegedly operated in a similar role, portraying itself as a commodities brokerage.

The $61 million targeted for forfeiture is just part of the activity identified by investigators. Authorities said a network of interrelated unhosted cryptocurrency addresses received and distributed over $1.5 billion in proceeds from illicit Iranian oil sales.