The US Treasury has sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange Shelbit and its founder Siavash Kayvanpour, accusing the company of moving millions of dollars in digital assets for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and helping an Iranian sanctions-evasion network access the international financial system. The action also targeted several companies linked to Kayvanpour, along with a separate Iranian exchange, Aban Tether.
Shelbit operated through SHPS Shelbit, a company registered in Georgia, according to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Kayvanpour was born in Iran, also holds citizenship in Dominica and Afghanistan, and lives in the United Arab Emirates. OFAC designated SHPS Shelbit alongside UAE-based Shelbit General Trading, Poland-based Shelbit Technologies, and other businesses it says were owned or controlled by Kayvanpour.
The sanctions are an administrative action by the US government rather than a criminal conviction, and Treasury’s allegations have not been tested in a US criminal court. They do, however, place the named companies and individuals on OFAC’s sanctions list, which generally blocks property under US jurisdiction and prohibits US persons from dealing with them.
Treasury claims digital wallets belonging to the IRGC sent cryptocurrency worth more than $1 million to Shelbit-controlled addresses, while more than $2 million subsequently moved in the opposite direction, from Shelbit addresses to wallets associated with the IRGC. Kayvanpour-controlled addresses also allegedly transferred more than $2 million to Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, which the US sanctioned earlier this year.
The designation follows a Reuters investigation published on July 31 that placed Shelbit at the center of a much larger network involving Iranian online gambling, cryptocurrency transfers, and sanctions evasion. Reuters traced at least $4 billion moving through the exchange and found that one gambling website alone had sent or received at least $130 million through Shelbit-linked wallets since May 2024.
That investigation connected Shelbit to a Farsi-language gambling network spanning more than 2,000 websites. Gambling is illegal in Iran, but the sites still had access to the country’s payment infrastructure while moving money through cryptocurrency. Reuters could not establish whether the IRGC directly controlled either Shelbit or the gambling network, nor could it determine where much of the money ultimately ended up. Treasury’s sanctions go further than the reporting did, alleging direct transfers between Shelbit-controlled and IRGC-linked wallets.
Shelbit has denied involvement in money laundering or any other illegal activity. The company told Reuters it had stopped operations in January 2026, although its website returned after the news agency’s investigation was published. Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority had already taken enforcement action against Shelbit General Trading in January and July 2025 over unlicensed activity, so this is not the first regulator to take an interest.
Treasury also drew attention to the gambling side of the network. Its Aug. 7 statement said Shelbit serviced a large Persian-language gambling operation run by two Iranian influencers living outside the country, and accused the broader network of laundering gambling proceeds. The two influencers were convicted in absentia in Iran in 2023 in connection with illegal gambling, although that Iranian prosecution is entirely separate from the US sanctions announced against Shelbit and Kayvanpour.
OFAC developed the action alongside IRS Criminal Investigation and said the sanctions form part of a wider campaign against financial networks used by the Iranian government and the IRGC. The designation does not by itself establish criminal liability in the United States, but it cuts Shelbit and the named businesses off from transactions involving US persons or property under US jurisdiction, and it creates sanctions risk for any company that continues dealing with them.