What to Know
- The Ministry of Defense of Israel recently seized 187 crypto wallets linked to IRGC.
- These wallets had $1.5 million worth of crypto at the time of confiscation.
- The officials revealed that these wallets were connected to terror financing of nearly $1.5 billion.
This week, Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced that it had seized almost 180 digital wallets linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). For context, the IRGC is a blacklisted terrorist group in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. According to officials, the accounts that had about $1.5 million in crypto, at the time of seizure, were found to be terror financing tools.
Israel Targets IRGC-Linked 187 Crypto Wallets
The National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) carried out the exercise and found out that 187 distinct wallets were locked. The descriptions of the accounts by authorities were that they were used to fund illegal activities, but without specifying the activities that they were funding. The wallets had already sent substantially more amounts. The blockchain records on Elliptic showed transactions above $1.5 billion in the stablecoin Tether (USDT).
Although Israel directly blamed the wallets as being committed by the IRGC agents, the attribution is still a question that is yet to be answered. Tom Robinson, the co-founder of blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, said that not every wallet could be definitively attributed to the Guard Corps. He further stated that there might have been numerous intermediaries or third parties who have been in control of the flows with the holdings confiscated just being a fraction of the whole flows.
Cryptocurrency History of the IRGC
Blockchain investigators had been following the use of cryptocurrencies by the IRGC over the years. The Iranian organizations have also resorted to digital assets to operate under the sanctions of international banking, involving the use of stablecoins and exchanges with loose regulation.
In June 2025, hackers with pro-Israel affiliation hacked into the largest digital asset platform in Iran, Nobitex, and emptied it of over $90 million. Nobitex, which is a popular exchange among the sanctioned individuals, was also allegedly used by associates of the IRGC to transfer funds to do their secret operations. Statistics published later indicated that the total crypto inflows of Iran decreased by over 10 percent after the breach.
Other cases have been sought by the United States. In December 2024, the Treasury Department authorized wallets filled with $332 million of USDT linked to Sa’id Ahmad Muhammad al-Jamal, who is alleged to have funded Houthi warriors in Yemen. Only last week, the U.S. Justice Department declared it had seized over half a million dollars in the accounts related to an Iranian national, Mohammad Abedini, who was suspected of providing the technology that could be used in the drone program of the Guard.
Participation of Private Firms and Stablecoin Issuers
The recent Israeli capture depicts the increasing role of business enterprises in state security operations. It was reported that the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, Tether, blocked the wallets in response to an order by Israeli authorities. These actions show that it is possible to block centralized stablecoins even in cases where a government attempts to do so, despite them being arbitrated in public blockchains.
Blockchain forensics companies such as Elliptic and TRM Labs were also involved in tracing of the financial flows. These businesses are experts at pseudonymous blockchain transaction analysis, and regulators and law enforcement agents can use the technology to trace funds between wallets and exchanges.
Escalating Financial Front
The scope of the current operation has been an extension of Israel’s attack on previously digital wallets associated with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, although the scale of the event is an escalation of its financial operation against Iran. Israel can intercept the ways through which the IRGC receives resources to procure and support its networks abroad by disrupting cryptocurrency channels.
Nevertheless, the current reliance on intermediaries and other forms of exchange can hardly be entirely disrupted. Analysts stressed that high-profile seizures prove the ability, but they usually only seize a small part of the money in the crypto ecosystem of Iran.
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