Over $61 million in cryptocurrency faces US forfeiture lawsuit tied to Iranian oil sales proceeds

Odaily News: The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has filed a civil forfeiture lawsuit. The complaint alleges that the funds in question were derived from Iran's sanctions-evading sales of crude oil and petroleum products, and were used to support the Iranian government, military, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The complaint alleges that Iran laundered over $1.5 billion in oil sales proceeds through cryptocurrency participants in Asian countries and elsewhere. Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale are accused of processing funds through relevant transaction accounts and transferring them to the Iranian government, proxies, or related entities; both companies also provided crypto-to-fiat on-ramp and off-ramp services to customers and had used the U.S. financial system to send and receive tens of millions of dollars.

U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General Sean S. Buckley stated that the funds in question could have been used to support military operations and terrorist activities targeting the United States and its allies. The complaint also states that Tether will burn the crypto tokens in the addresses involved, issue equivalent replacement tokens, and transfer them to a wallet controlled by the U.S. government.