Dubai Exchange Shelbit Moves Billions for Iranian Gambling Network
An Iranian expatriate named Siavash Kayvanpour operates an unlicensed exchange called Shelbit out of a Dubai office, processing at least $4 billion in cryptocurrency since May 2024.
According to investigators, Shelbit is the nerve center of a multi-billion-dollar sanctions-evasion operation. The network's revenue-generating layer consists of over 2,000 illegal gambling websites, most targeting Iranian users who are banned from engaging in such activities.
Funds move from these sites through Shelbit, which acts as an unlicensed exchange, and blockchain investigators have traced roughly $676 million in identifiable transactions to Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume.
The network's wallet connections also link to Iran's central bank and wallets associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a foreign terrorist organization designated by the US.