Israel’s Ministry of Protection introduced on Monday that it was ordering the seizure of 187 crypto wallets that allegedly belong to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.
In a doc detailing the seizure order, the ministry’s Nationwide Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) mentioned it was “satisfied that the cryptocurrency wallets” within the record are property of the IRGC and are “used for the perpetration of a extreme terror crime.”
The IRGC is sanctioned as a terrorist group by the USA, the European Union, and Israel, amongst different international locations.
In keeping with blockchain monitoring agency Elliptic, the named wallets have acquired $1.5 billion over time in Tether’s stablecoin USDT. Elliptic’s co-founder and chief scientist Tom Robinson mentioned that the corporate can not affirm whether or not these wallets do certainly belong to the IRGC. Robinson additionally mentioned that the wallets at the moment solely maintain $1.5 million, a fraction of the funds that moved via them till right now.
Israel’s Ministry of Protection didn’t reply to information.killnetswitch’s request for remark, asking the way it was capable of set up that these 187 wallets are linked to the IRGC.
In a weblog submit, Elliptic mentioned that “among the addresses could also be managed by cryptocurrency companies and could possibly be a part of pockets infrastructure used to facilitate transactions for a lot of clients.”
Amir Rashidi, the director of digital rights and security on the Iran-focused nonprofit Miaan Group, mentioned it’s potential Israel discovered details about these wallets by hacking into Iran’s infrastructure. Rashidi added that “there have been all the time rumors that the IRGC was utilizing cryptocurrency to bypass sanctions.”
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
“Many of those circumstances would possibly, for instance, contain exchanges that aren’t immediately a part of the IRGC however are linked to it, just like many banks, monetary and credit score establishments, and even firms that seem like personal,” he mentioned.
This isn’t the primary time Israel, or at the very least Israeli-aligned teams, has focused Iran’s authorities cryptocurrency stash.
On June 18, through the so-called Twelve-Day Battle between Israel and Iran, a hacking group, known as Predatory Sparrow, believed to have hyperlinks to Israel’s authorities hacked Iran’s largest crypto alternate Nobitex. The hackers stole round $90 million value of crypto after which “burned” it by sending it to inaccessible wallets, successfully destroying the digital funds.
Crypto intelligence companies like Elliptic and TRM Labs beforehand mentioned that Nobitex was utilized by the IRGC.
