According to a Reuters investigation published Friday, Nobitex, Iran’s dominant crypto exchange, was founded by brothers Ali and Mohammad Kharrazi, members of an elite political family tied by marriage to all three of Iran’s supreme leaders. The brothers registered the company in 2018 alongside CEO Amir Hosein Rad. Their grandfather sat on Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which selects the supreme leader, and their father, Ayatollah Bagher Kharrazi, founded the Iranian political organization Hezbollah and helped staff the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after the 1979 revolution. Nobitex claims approximately 11 million users and handles roughly 70% of Iran’s crypto activity.
Blockchain analytics firms identified substantial illicit flows through the platform, with estimates ranging from $22 million to $366 million in suspect transactions. Elliptic found that wallets controlled by Iran’s Central Bank transferred approximately $347 million to Nobitex in the first half of 2025 as part of a larger central bank crypto acquisition program. At least $20 million in additional central bank funds were routed through the exchange, according to Crystal Intelligence analysis. Despite these findings, Nobitex was not included in new U.S. Treasury sanctions announced on April 28 targeting Iran’s shadow banking infrastructure, and no Kharrazi family member has been sanctioned by Western governments.
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