The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated BitBank, a digital assets venture controlled by OFAC-designated Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, as part of Operation Economic Outcast, the Trump administration’s economic campaign against Iran and its enablers. The designations also include BitBank’s developer, Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, and three Zanjani associates: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein and Seyed Adel Heidari.
“Today’s designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond OFAC’s reach,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “If you support the Iranian regime, the Department of the Treasury will sanction you.”
Treasury said OFAC-designated Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used BitBank since June to transfer payments it received to the Iranian regime. The action targets the network Zanjani built to launder funds and transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including the digital asset platforms and developers supporting that effort.
The designations were made under Executive Order 13902, which targets Iran’s digital asset sector as part of what Treasury has called “Economic D-Day,” along with other sectors of the Iranian economy. Treasury said the expanded use of that authority gives the department significant ability to pursue and disrupt the regime’s efforts to evade sanctions through digital assets, and that it will continue targeting both the Iranian digital asset ecosystem and the international entities that help facilitate it.
Operation Economic Outcast
Announced by Bessent on Aug. 24, 2026, and dubbed “Economic D-Day,” Operation Economic Outcast is aimed at severing the remaining economic lifelines sustaining the Iranian regime. Treasury said it has mapped the networks, facilitators and financial channels Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions and fund terrorism, and is working with the European Union, United Kingdom, Gulf partners and others to target the regime’s sources of illicit revenue. Treasury warned that any entity facilitating money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system, and emphasized that those continuing to do business with the regime face secondary sanctions exposure.
BitBank and the Zanjani Network
Treasury previously designated multiple Zanjani-linked digital asset entities and facilitators on Jan. 30 and July 24, 2026. Zanjani was sentenced to death in Iran in 2016 for embezzling millions of dollars from the OFAC-designated National Iranian Oil Company, but his sentence was commuted in 2024. By 2025, he had reemerged publicly as a backer of regime-linked economic projects, building a network of digital asset companies alongside other infrastructure and transportation ventures that Treasury said have served as both public-facing businesses and covert financial platforms enabling sanctions evasion.
BitBank is an Iranian digital assets exchange that Zanjani has advertised on his social media accounts since at least 2024, and it has been listed as a partner by other companies within his sanctions evasion network, according to Treasury. Between June and July of this year, Treasury said Zanjani used BitBank to facilitate the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin to the IRGC. BitBank’s software was developed by Pishtaz Simorgh, a subsidiary of the OFAC-designated Dot One Value Creation Group. OFAC designated both BitBank and Pishtaz Simorgh under Executive Order 13902 for operating in Iran’s digital asset sector.
The three individuals designated Wednesday are all executives of Dot One and serve as key lieutenants in Zanjani’s digital assets sanctions evasion network, according to Treasury. Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein has been involved in the majority of Zanjani’s sanctions evasion activity, including oil exports and digital asset transfers, and has brokered digital asset transactions that ultimately reached the IRGC. Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein is a Dot One manager and representative who also serves as CEO of Pishtaz Simorgh. Seyed Adel Heidari is vice chairman of Dot One’s board of directors.
Sanctions Implications
As a result of the designations, all property and interests in property of the designated individuals and entities that are in the United States or under the control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. Entities owned 50% or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. OFAC regulations generally prohibit transactions by U.S. persons, or within or transiting the United States, involving property or interests belonging to designated or blocked persons, unless authorized by an OFAC license or otherwise exempt.
Violations of U.S. sanctions can result in civil or criminal penalties, which OFAC may impose on a strict liability basis. Individuals who provide information about sanctions violations to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s whistleblower program may be eligible for awards if their information leads to a successful enforcement action resulting in monetary penalties exceeding $1 million.
