Historical report: The original article was published November 7, 2026, at 05:06:03 UTC+08:00. The account below reflects that reporting date.
The U.S. Treasury Department issued an order to cut crypto exchange MEXC Global off from the American financial system, alleging that it facilitated at least $16 billion in illicit transactions tied to Iran, North Korea and Russia.
Issued Friday through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the order bars U.S. financial institutions from processing funds transfers to or from MEXC. It takes effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, rather than immediately. The action forms part of Treasury’s broader campaign called Operation Economic Outcast.
Public compliance claims versus Treasury’s findings
According to FinCEN, MEXC publicly claimed to maintain anti-money-laundering controls and prohibited users in jurisdictions including Iran and North Korea. The agency nevertheless described its compliance as having “severe deficiencies.”
FinCEN said the exchange moved at least $16 billion connected to illicit activity between May 2021 and May 2026. Its findings included:
- Nearly $1.5 billion tied to Russian sanctions evasion, including $232 million in direct transactions with sanctioned entities.
- Transactions with sanctioned Russian exchange Garantex and its successor Grinex as recently as June 2026, more than four years after Garantex was first designated.
- Roughly $200 million linked to the A7A5 stablecoin.
- About $22 million benefiting Iran’s central bank and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The reported categories should not be assumed to be separate, additive totals. These are FinCEN’s findings and allegations, not independently established conclusions in this article.
FinCEN designated MEXC a “primary money laundering concern” in connection with Russian illicit finance. Founded in 2018, MEXC was described in the source as one of the world’s 20 largest crypto exchanges. According to FinCEN, it processed more than $1 billion in daily transactions, held around $5 billion in reserves and offered more than 3,000 tokens.
Those scale figures describe the exchange’s reach; they do not resolve the gap between its stated compliance controls and the conduct Treasury alleged.
A broader sanctions-evasion crackdown
The source reported that, in the preceding month, Treasury had designated Russia’s A7 Network a transnational criminal organization and proposed cutting its front companies off from U.S. finance. Treasury flagged more than $179 billion in transactions through the network’s ruble-backed A7A5 token, much of it routed through Garantex and Grinex. That broader figure was not presented as MEXC’s transaction volume.
The campaign also extended to Iran’s crypto sector. Treasury gained authority to sanction anyone operating in that sector and blacklisted Iranian exchange Nobitex over its role in funneling crypto to the IRGC, according to the report.
“Financial institutions cannot have it both ways: Either you support the Iranian regime, or you have access to the U.S. financial system,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
What the order does—and does not establish
The MEXC order uses a provision of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, rather than a standard sanctions designation. The source described this as a tool FinCEN increasingly used to cut off crypto infrastructure operating outside the correspondent banking system.
The central issue is the documented conflict between MEXC’s public compliance position and FinCEN’s account of continued activity involving sanctioned counterparties. The reported action restricts access to U.S. financial transfers; it does not, on its own, establish exchange insolvency or customer losses.