The US Treasury Department on November 6 sanctioned eight money services businesses in Ontario and British Columbia that it says converted Iranian rials into digital assets for the Iranian regime, sent funds to addresses tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and laundered drug money for accused drug trafficker Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder.
The designations come from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under Executive Order 13902, the 2020 order covering sectors of Iran’s economy. Treasury said it coordinated the action with its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Canada’s financial intelligence unit, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC). It is the latest step in what Treasury calls “Operation Economic Outcast,” a campaign against Iran’s financial channels that Treasury says began in August.
Who was sanctioned
OFAC’s sanctions list entry for the action names eight companies. Most list addresses on Yonge Street in North York, Richmond Hill and Thornhill, north of downtown Toronto. Two are in Vancouver and North Vancouver. Two entries also list Montreal addresses.
- Diverse Trade Inc, also known as Million Exchange (Richmond Hill, Toronto and Montreal)
- 1380079 BC Ltd, also known as Amin Exchange Vancouver (North Vancouver; Montreal)
- Top PC Technician Inc, also known as Amin Exchange Toronto (North York and Thornhill)
- NIA Nations Currency Ltd (Vancouver and North Vancouver)
- 2397639 Ontario Ltd, also known as Farah Exchange (North York)
- CCC Inc, also known as C Exchange (North York)
- B Galaxy Inc, also known as Cryptoyal (North York and Thornhill)
- Darvish Exchange, also known as Kanata MD Inc (Richmond Hill and North York)
Each listing carries a “secondary sanctions risk” warning under Section 2 of the executive order. That puts foreign banks, not only Americans, on notice that dealing with these firms can draw US penalties.
What Treasury alleges
Treasury’s allegations center on digital asset transactions. It says digital asset addresses controlled by Million Exchange sent the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars to addresses linked to the IRGC or to terrorism. It says Farah Exchange moved hundreds of thousands of dollars through Iranian exchanges Shelbit and Wallex, sent thousands to terrorism-linked addresses, and sent millions of dollars to addresses linked to Wedding. CCC Inc, Treasury says, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from terrorism-associated addresses. NIA Nations and Darvish are accused of trading with Iranian exchanges the United States had already sanctioned, including Nobitex, Wallex, Ramzinex, Bitpin, Aban Tether and Shelbit.
Those Iranian exchanges were designated in two earlier rounds, on June 2 and August 7 of this year. The Canadian firms, in other words, are alleged to be the on-ramp: they took cash or rials and pushed value into a pipeline the United States had already mapped.
The State Department, in a statement from spokesman Tommy Pigott, said “several of these businesses sent funds to digital asset accounts linked to the IRGC and other terrorist activity,” and that some “changed their names and addresses to avoid detection.” The long alias lists on OFAC’s entries fit that description. CCC Inc alone is listed with seven aliases, including “Parsis Exchange,” “Salam Exchange” and “Sarafi Capital.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “Canada cannot be a safe haven for illicit financial facilitators that provide sanctions evasion services to the Iranian regime and its proxies.” He added: “Treasury will pursue and disrupt the Iranian regime’s financial channels anywhere in the world.”
The Ryan Wedding connection
Treasury also ties several of the firms to a drug case. It says Wedding “has used money exchange businesses in the Vancouver and Toronto areas to launder billions of dollars in drug proceeds.” According to Treasury, couriers carried bulk cash to the exchanges, which converted it into digital assets, and Wedding worked with several of the sanctioned firms to move “millions of dollars’ worth of digital assets” before his arrest in January 2026.
Wedding, who represented Canada in snowboarding at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, was arrested in Mexico and brought to the United States. He faces federal drug trafficking, murder and attempted-murder charges in California and has pleaded not guilty, ABC7 Los Angeles reported in January. Global News reports he remains in custody awaiting trials scheduled for March and October of next year. He has not been convicted of anything.
What is proven, and what is not
Established: the eight designations, the addresses and aliases on OFAC’s list, the legal authority used, and the coordination with FINTRAC, all from US government documents.
Alleged, not proven in court: every claim about what the firms did. Sanctions designations are administrative decisions. Treasury has not published the underlying blockchain evidence, and no criminal charges against the eight companies were announced. The “billions” figure for Wedding’s laundering is Treasury’s estimate of his total activity across Vancouver and Toronto exchanges, not a sum traced to these eight firms. For the firms themselves, Treasury gives mostly ranges such as “hundreds of thousands” and “millions.”
Not found: RSN found no public statement from Ottawa beyond the US description of FINTRAC’s role, and no response from any of the eight businesses in the reporting we read. If they respond, we will update this article.
Why it matters
The case puts a spotlight on small storefront exchanges that, by Treasury’s account, can move value to Tehran outside the banking system. The Canadian action came two days after Treasury sanctioned companies and individuals in India and Turkey for supporting Iran under the same campaign, according to Just Security’s November 5 news digest, citing Reuters.
RSN analysis: the overlap Treasury describes, the same counters serving both a large drug-trafficking network and IRGC-linked wallets, would mean Canadian money services regulation is failing on two fronts at once. That is Treasury’s account, and it has not been tested in court. Whether Canada follows with its own penalties or charges will show whether Ottawa accepts it.
Sources
- US Treasury Department, “Operation Economic Outcast Sanctions Eight Canadian Money Services Businesses Enabling Iranian Regime,” November 6, 2026: home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0686
- Office of Foreign Assets Control, “Iran-related Designations,” November 6, 2026: ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20261106
- US State Department, “U.S. Sanctions Cripple Financial Networks Sustaining the Iranian Regime,” November 6, 2026: state.gov
- Global News (The Canadian Press), “U.S. Treasury sanctions Canadian firms connected to Ryan Wedding and Iran,” November 6, 2026: globalnews.ca
- ABC7 Los Angeles, “Ryan Wedding, ex-Olympic snowboarder turned alleged drug kingpin, pleads not guilty in federal court,” January 2026: abc7.com
- Just Security, “Early Edition: November 5, 2026”: justsecurity.org
Featured image: The US Treasury Department in Washington. Photo by Roman Boed (*rboed*) via Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0.
How this article was made: Right Side News researched and drafted this article with the help of AI tools. Sources are linked so readers can check them. Spot an error? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it.
