LONDON (Reuters) — The sons of a powerful family with close ties to Iran’s new supreme leader control the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, transforming it from a startup into a conduit to the global economy used by both blacklisted state institutions and ordinary citizens.

Nobitex was founded in 2018 by brothers Ali and Mohammad Kharrazi under an alternative family name. It claims 11 million users, more than 10% of Iran’s population. While Iran is subject to blanket Western economic sanctions, the exchange has avoided being designated by the United States and its allies.

Locked out of international banking and facing a devalued rial and rampant inflation, ordinary Iranians use the exchange to buy and hold cryptocurrency.

But Nobitex has also processed between tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions linked to sanctioned groups including Iran’s central bank and powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a Reuters investigation has found.

Nobitex is used by the Iranian state to route money to allies outside the conventional banking system, according to an analysis of blockchain records by crypto analytic firm Crystal Intelligence and interviews with four private financial investigators.

Reuters also spoke with nine Iranians who have worked for or with Nobitex. Six of the former employees interviewed by Reuters said they were aware that Nobitex was used by Iran’s government and its security agencies to bypass stringent Western financial sanctions.

Nobitex told Reuters there had never been any agreement with any Iranian government agency, and none of the employees interviewed by Reuters knew of one.

“We have faced significant operational restrictions from the Iranian government, including office raids, domain blocking, and banking gateway closures,” Nobitex said. “These actions are entirely inconsistent with the notion that we are receiving any form of governmental support.”

Nobitex has publicly stated its aim is to enable Iranians to invest in crypto despite “the shadow of sanctions” and advises its clients on how best to avoid their transactions being monitored or intercepted by Western governments.

To hide its tracks, Nobitex changes the wallet addresses it uses for fund transfers, and has also developed cryptographic tools to further obfuscate the links between related wallets because of “increasing restrictions related to international sanctions,” according to a 2021 annual report.

Additionally, Nobitex advises clients to layer transactions using multiple wallet addresses to make them harder for Western investigators to track.

During a 2025 hack of Nobitex by the group Predatory Sparrow, about $90 million worth of cryptocurrency was sent to inaccessible wallets labelled with profane anti-IRGC names. In an indication of Nobitex’s vast resources, the company and its shareholders – including the brothers – directly reimbursed customers whose money had been taken.

The firm has continued processing transactions throughout the war with the US and Israel that began on February 28, even during a government-imposed nationwide internet shutdown and widespread power outages in Tehran, according to three blockchain analysis firms that track activity involving Nobitex and other exchanges.

During that time Nobitex has processed more than $100 million in transactions, about 20% of its usual activity, according to Crystal Intelligence, which has been investigating Iranian cryptocurrency flows for more than four years.

Brothers concealed illustrious ties

Ali and Mohammad Kharrazi are the third generation of their family at the heart of Iran’s ruling establishment since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Kharrazis have advised supreme leaders and occupied key political, diplomatic and religious posts.

The clan is related by marriage to all three supreme leaders of the Islamic Republic: the revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late Ali Khamenei, and Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.

The brothers – using the family surname Aghamir – built Nobitex into the country’s dominant cryptocurrency provider. It handles an estimated 70% of Iran’s crypto transactions.

It’s not unheard of for some........

© The Times of Israel