The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil forfeiture complaint on 14 September 2026 against approximately $61 million in cryptocurrency alleged to represent proceeds of black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian crude oil and petroleum products. Deputy United States Attorney Sean S. Buckley announced the filing alongside James C. Barnacle, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI New York Field Office. The matter sits at the pleading stage, with no judicial determination yet made.
The claim is directed at the cryptocurrency itself, brought against approximately $61 million in assets rather than as a charge against a named defendant. On the face of the announcement, the claim is unproven until a court awards a judgment in favour of the United States, and the office described the filing as merely an allegation that money or property was involved in or represents the proceeds of a crime. The announcement does not identify the forfeiture statutes relied on, so the operative provisions sit in the complaint rather than in the public notice. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is identified as a designated terrorist organisation.
Two Chinese companies are named, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, alleged to have used trading accounts at the UAE-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance to move oil proceeds to the Government of Iran, its agents and its proxies. Blessed Trust presents itself to financial services and cryptocurrency service providers as a wealth management or virtual asset custodial services firm, and is alleged to have supplied on-ramp services converting fiat currency into cryptocurrency, including through United States-based cryptocurrency issuers. Hexa Whale holds itself out as a commodities brokering company and is said to have worked in concert with Blessed Trust and its affiliates. Clients of both are described as including companies in China's petroleum and petroleum products sector. Exchanges, custodians and token issuers that onboarded either company can expect requests for transaction records and will need to revisit their sanctions screening of those relationships.
The announcement places this claim inside a far larger alleged flow. A set of interrelated unhosted cryptocurrency addresses, described as the Entity A addresses, is said to have received and distributed more than approximately $1.5 billion in proceeds of illicit Iranian oil sales, passing funds to IRGC-related money services businesses, IRGC-related cryptocurrency addresses and an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange. The $61 million sought here is a fraction of that sum, leaving open whether further actions will follow against the remaining balances. Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale are also alleged to have used the United States financial system to send or receive tens of millions of dollars as part of the same scheme.
Licentium advises cryptocurrency exchanges, custodians, token issuers and payment firms on sanctions exposure, counterparty due diligence and responses to law enforcement process. Work we undertake includes sanctions and counterparty risk reviews of onboarded corporate clients, tracing and documentation of on-chain fund flows, drafting and testing of escalation procedures for freeze and information requests, and representation in civil forfeiture and asset recovery proceedings.