The United States Treasury Department has imposed financial sanctions on eight Canadian money-service companies that it says did business with sanctioned Iranian entities.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Treasury said the firms facilitated the exchange of Iranian rials and other currencies for digital assets, enabling international transactions. The measures are intended to isolate the companies from the dollar-based financial system and represent the latest in a series of Treasury moves against firms outside the United States. Designations of this kind add the named firms to Treasury's sanctions list, with which US persons are generally barred from doing business, a mechanism that extends American sanctions enforcement to any institution with exposure to the US financial system.

According to the department, the businesses have facilitated transactions with sanctioned Iranian digital asset exchanges, as well as with digital asset addresses associated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Digital asset addresses designated by the Treasury are published on its sanctions list, which banks and crypto platforms screen to identify blocked counterparties.

Bessent says Canada cannot be a safe haven

“Canada cannot be a safe haven for illicit financial facilitators that provide sanctions evasion services to the Iranian regime and its proxies,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury will pursue and disrupt the Iranian regime's financial channels anywhere in the world.”

Cointelegraph reported in August that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was targeting crypto exchanges facilitating the transfer of funds to Iran's IRGC. Bessent said at the time that the United States planned to “increase the economic pressure” on Iran, focusing on financial networks that fund the country's regime “in dollars, rials, or crypto.”

Friday's designations are a continuation of the Treasury's campaign to “disrupt the regime's exploitation of digital assets to fund terrorism, human rights abuses, and attacks on US personnel and allies,” the statement said.

The department added that the actions were coordinated with FINTRAC, Canada's financial intelligence unit, and noted that some of the entities subject to the measures have changed their names and addresses to evade detection.

$20 million reward for information on Iran's nuclear program

In a separate action announced on Friday, the US Rewards for Justice program, administered by the US Department of State, offered as much as $20 million and possible relocation for information about Iran's nuclear program, including its facilities, equipment, and personnel.

The Treasury said Iran's lack of compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency on safeguards has led to the agency's loss of “continuity of knowledge” regarding the country's production of enriched uranium and components such as centrifuges.