Is Iran's Supreme Leader's Family Running a Cryptocurrency Exchange? A Scheme to Evade US Scrutiny?

▲ Iran, Bitcoin (BTC)/ChatGPT generated image ©

Shocking investigation results have been announced, revealing that Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange has acted not just as a financial platform, but as a secret channel to siphon off enormous funds, circumventing harsh US economic sanctions, causing a stir in the international community.

According to cryptocurrency media outlet Bitcoinist on May 2 (local time), Reuters reported in an in-depth piece that Iranian cryptocurrency exchange Nobitex is a key conduit in a vast parallel financial system that helps the Iranian government evade sanctions. Even more astonishing is the fact that the individuals who effectively control this exchange are the two sons of the Kharrazi family, a powerful political-religious family deeply connected to Iran's new Supreme Leader.

Nobitex is a platform established in 2018 by brothers Ali Kharrazi and Mohammad Kharrazi using pseudonyms, and it boasts a massive 11 million subscribers, well over 10% of Iran's total population. Reuters analyzed that Iranian citizens, finding it difficult to use existing financial networks due to the collapse of the rial's value, rampant inflation, and Western sanctions, flocked to Nobitex en masse for survival.

The problem is that this platform has processed tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions linked to entities under heavy US sanctions, such as the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Combining blockchain analysis from Crystal Intelligence, financial investigators, and testimonies from current and former employees, it appears that Nobitex is being exploited as a key conduit for the Iranian government to secretly channel vast sums of money to overseas allies, bypassing Western financial networks.

In response, Nobitex has completely denied the allegations, stating that it has never entered into any form of agreement with the Iranian government or security agencies. On the contrary, they argued that the claim of being protected by the government is absurd, as they have faced extreme operational restrictions and suppression from the government, including office raids, domain blocking, and the closure of banking payment networks.

However, even when internet blackouts and large-scale power outages occurred across Iran during the military conflict between the US and Israel that began on February 28, Nobitex was found to have quietly processed over $100 million in transactions, amounting to 20% of its usual trading volume. According to blockchain analysis firms, the scale of illicit fund transfers through Nobitex varies among analysis agencies, with Elliptic estimating $366 million and Chainalysis estimating $68 million, but it clearly appears to be serving as a massive financial pipeline to circumvent sanctions.

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