US Sanctions Iranian Crypto Exchange Nobitex for Facilitating Ransomware
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated Nobitex, Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange, on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List. This enforcement action targets the exchange's role in providing critical financial infrastructure for ransomware operators and terrorist organizations to off-ramp illicitly obtained digital assets—specifically BTC, ETH, and USDT—into fiat currency. By leveraging blockchain obfuscation techniques and mixing services prior to ingress, threat actors have utilized Nobitex to bypass international sanctions. This designation aims to disrupt the nexus between decentralized finance and state-sponsored cybercrime by targeting the liquidity channels used for ransomware extortion payouts.