The US Treasury Department on Friday imposed financial sanctions on eight Canadian money-service companies, alleging they conducted business with sanctioned Iranian entities. According to a Treasury statement, these companies facilitated the exchange of Iranian rials and other currencies for digital assets, enabling international transactions.
The sanctions aim to isolate the firms from the dollar-based financial system and are the latest in a series of Treasury actions against non-US companies. The Treasury said the businesses facilitated transactions with sanctioned Iranian digital asset exchanges and with digital asset addresses associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Canada Not a Safe Haven
“Canada cannot be a safe haven for illicit financial facilitators that provide sanctions evasion services to the Iranian regime and its proxies,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury will pursue and disrupt the Iranian regime’s financial channels anywhere in the world.”
Cointelegraph reported in August that the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was targeting crypto exchanges facilitating fund transfers to Iran’s IRGC. Bessent said at the time that the US planned to “increase the economic pressure” on Iran, focusing on financial networks funding the country’s regime “in dollars, rials, or crypto.”
Friday’s designations continue Treasury’s campaign to “disrupt the regime’s exploitation of digital assets to fund terrorism, human rights abuses, and attacks on US personnel and allies,” the statement said. It added that the actions were coordinated with FINTRAC, Canada’s financial intelligence unit.
Some of the entities subject to this action have changed their names and addresses to evade detection, the statement noted.
$20 Million Reward for Iran Nuclear Information
In a separate action on Friday, the US Rewards for Justice program offered as much as $20 million and possible relocation for information about Iran’s nuclear program, including its facilities, equipment and personnel.
Iran’s lack of compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency on safeguards has led to the agency’s loss of “continuity of knowledge” regarding Iran’s production of enriched uranium and components like centrifuges, the statement said.
