Reuters ties Nobitex founders to Iran’s ruling Khamenei dynasty

Iran’s largest crypto exchange, Nobitex, was founded by two brothers from one of the country’s most politically connected families, according to a Reuters investigation published May 1. Ali and Mohammad Kharrazi registered the exchange in 2018 under a different surname, Aghamir Mohammad Ali, which kept the family connection off the public record for years.

The exchange has since moved significant volumes for sanctioned Iranian institutions, including the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Reuters published its findings three days after the US Treasury sanctioned what it called Iran’s shadow banking infrastructure on April 28. Nobitex was not designated.

Brothers used the Aghamir surname to hide their Kharrazi roots

Reuters traced the family link through corporate filings, banking records, and domain registration data. The email used to register the Nobitex domain in 2017 contained the Kharrazi name and was tied to a religious charity run by the brothers’ father.

The brothers’ grandfather served on the Assembly of Experts, the body that selects Iran’s supreme leader, and personally tutored Mojtaba Khamenei. Mojtaba succeeded his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a February 28 airstrike at the start of the US-Israeli war in Iran.

The brothers’ father, Ayatollah Bagher Kharrazi, founded an Iranian political organization called Hezbollah, separate from the Lebanese militia of the same name, and helped staff the IRGC after the 1979 revolution. The Kharrazi family is related by marriage to all three Iranian supreme leaders.

Nobitex CEO Amir Hosein Rad, who co-founded the exchange, is not part of the family.

Central bank wallets sent $347 million to Nobitex in H1 2025

The blockchain analytics firms that examined Nobitex’s activity reached different conclusions. Elliptic identified around $366 million in suspect transactions. Chainalysis put the figure at roughly $68 million. Crystal Intelligence put direct transfers from sanctioned wallets at about $22 million. All three estimates likely understate the actual flow.

Elliptic also found that wallets linked to the Central Bank of Iran sent approximately $347 million to Nobitex in the first half of 2025. An early backer, Mohammad Bagher Nahvi, is vice chairman of Safiran Airport Services, which the Treasury sanctioned in September 2022 over its role coordinating flights tied to Iranian drone shipments to Russia.

Cryptopolitan reported in October 2024 that OSINT researchers had already identified Nobitex shareholders with ties to the supreme leader and to IRGC founder Mohsen Rezaee Mirqaed; Reuters has now attached specific names to that earlier work.

During the February 2026 internet shutdown imposed at the start of the conflict, Nobitex remained operational. Crystal Intelligence told Reuters that more than $100 million moved through the exchange during the conflict, roughly a fifth of normal volume, with about $54 million withdrawn since hostilities began.

NetBlocks estimated that only 1 to 2 percent of Iranians retained internet access through a government-controlled whitelist. Nobitex was on it.

Treasury sanctioned Iran’s shadow banks April 28 and skipped Nobitex

Neither the exchange nor any Kharrazi family member appears on US, UK, or EU sanctions lists. Senator Elizabeth Warren, ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called the investigation “a flashing red light,” warning that digital assets are increasingly being used by adversarial states to move money outside traditional finance.

Nobitex denied any government affiliation in a statement to Reuters. The exchange said it “has never been an arm of the government” and described illicit transactions as a small share of overall activity that occurred without management’s knowledge. It told Reuters it serves about 11 million users, or roughly 70% of Iran’s crypto transactions.

Reuters previously reported that Binance facilitated about $7.8 billion in transactions for Nobitex users despite US sanctions. The April 28 sanctions package excluded Nobitex.

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