作者：Gavin Finch，路透社驻伦敦调查记者 Allison Martell，路透社驻多伦多调查记者 Denise Ajiri 路透社驻纽约调查和数据记者 James Pearson，路透社驻伦敦调查记者；编译：Eric，Foresight News

伊朗新任最高领袖的亲信家族之子控制着该国最大的加密货币交易所，他们将其从一家初创企业转变为连通全球经济的渠道，既为被列入黑名单的国家机构服务，也为普通民众所用。

Since Nobitex was founded by two brothers under a family alias, the exchange has processed tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions linked to sanctioned groups, including Iran’s central bank and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a Reuters investigation found.

The two men are members of the Kharrazi family, one of the most influential families in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Business registration records show that when the exchange was founded, the brothers used surnames rarely used by members of the family.

The company quickly became embedded in the Iranian economic system. Nobitex claims to have 11 million users, more than 10% of Iran’s total population.由于被排除在国际银行体系之外，加之里亚尔大幅贬值和恶性通货膨胀，普通伊朗民众只能通过该交易所购买和持有加密货币。

This is a screenshot of the Nobitex website homepage on March 28, one month after the war broke out. The company continued to operate despite government internet blockades during the war.

Although Iran faces comprehensive Western economic sanctions, the exchange has so far not been included in the sanctions list of the United States and its allies.路透社未能找到任何迹象表明 Kharrazi 家族成员曾受到西方政府的制裁，也无法确定为何 Nobitex 得以避免其他伊朗主要经济实体所遭受的那类处罚。

The revelation by Reuters of the elite background of Nobitex’s founder comes at a critical juncture for Iran and the Revolutionary Guards in particular.自最高领袖哈梅内伊于二月在美国和以色列对伊朗开战之初的一次空袭中身亡以来，革命卫队进一步巩固了其对伊朗经济和安全机构的控制。

The two brothers are third generation members of the Kharrazi family, at the heart of Iran's rule. Members of the Kharrazi family have served as advisers to the supreme leader and held key political, diplomatic and religious positions.该家族与伊朗伊斯兰共和国三位最高领袖均有姻亲关系：革命创始人 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini、已故的哈梅内伊，以及哈梅内伊之子 Mojtaba。

Ali Kharrazi 与 Mohammad Kharrazi 两兄弟（使用家族姓氏 Aghamir）将 Nobitex 打造为该国占主导地位的加密货币交易平台。 It is estimated that the exchange handles approximately 70% of cryptocurrency transactions in Iran. It is not uncommon for Iranians to use aliases, but the brothers appear to be the only members of their immediate family who have deliberately distanced themselves from their illustrious family background.

据路透社调查发现，Nobitex 既充当着连接全球加密货币市场的桥梁，也是一个平行金融体系中的核心节点，该体系被用于将资金转移至西方制裁范围之外。加密货币分析公司 Crystal Intelligence 对链上数据的分析及四位私人金融调查员的访谈显示，伊朗政府利用该交易所通过传统银行体系之外的路径向盟友输送资金。路透社还采访了九名曾在 Nobitex 工作或与之合作的伊朗人，其中六人表示他们知晓受西方制裁的国家资金曾流经该交易所。

Nobitex 在致路透社的电子邮件声明中否认与政府存在直接关联或向国家提供协助，并称任何流经该交易所的非法资金均未获得管理层批准或知情。 The company said the brothers had not changed their identities or used alternative identities.

The company also said the value of any transactions involving state entities was far lower than estimates provided to Reuters by investigators.

Nobitex 称：「Nobitex 是一家私营独立企业。它从未成为政府分支，与伊朗中央银行、伊斯兰革命卫队或任何其他政府机构从未存在任何关系、安排、协议或合同。」

The Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment through its U.N. missions in New York and Geneva.

"Under President Trump's strong leadership, the United States is moving aggressively with an economic thunderbolt, using all available tools to maintain maximum pressure on Iran and systematically undermining Tehran's ability to generate revenue, move and repatriate funds," a Trump administration official wrote in response to Reuters' questions detailing the findings. The official did not mention Nobitex.

据三家追踪 Nobitex 及其他交易所活动的区块链分析公司称，在整个战争期间，Nobitex 持续处理交易，即使在政府实施全国性互联网封锁和德黑兰大规模停电期间也是如此。

Nobitex processed more than $100 million in transactions during this period, or about 20% of its normal business volume, according to Crystal Intelligence. The firm has been investigating the flow of Iranian cryptocurrency funds for more than four years.

Nick Smart, chief intelligence officer at Crystal Intelligence, said: "The problem with Nobitex is that because so much of the activity on the platform belongs to ordinary Iranians, it is difficult to distinguish the regime from the people using the platform."

Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said the revelations about Nobitex were concerning.

Warren, the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement to Reuters: "This latest report is a warning red light: Adversaries are using digital assets as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated global financial system. Because too many services in the crypto ecosystem lack basic controls to prevent money laundering and sanctions evasion, it has become easy to move billions of funds.

Brother founders

The original board of directors of Nobitex consisted of brothers Ali and Mohammad and Amir Hosein Rad. All three graduated from Sharif University of Technology, an elite institution in Tehran that is comparable to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Rad, who is not related to the brothers, and Ali are the public representatives of the company, with Rad serving as CEO and Mohammad an expert in blockchain technology.

In interviews filmed for the Nobitex company brochure, the brothers used the family name Aghmir. Mohammad describes his brother as "my life advisor, who I always turn to when making decisions." Ali was born in 1986 and Mohammad in 1992, according to government and bank records reviewed by Reuters.

Describing his affection for the company in the same brochure, Ali said that the founders cared for Nobitex "like their own children" and that he believed the company was specially favored: "In any situation, I always feel the help of some supernatural force."

This is a screenshot of the Nobitex website showing Seyed Mohammad Ali Aghamir Mohammad Ali, known as Ali, from the Kharrazi family and one of Nobitex's public figures. Here he is explaining how to keep cryptocurrencies safe.

Within the company, the brothers hid the surname Kharrazi even from those closest to them, according to seven former employees and industry insiders interviewed by Reuters. Some of these sources said they have known the brothers since college. As was true then, as is true now, they never used the surname Kharrazi.

Reuters was unable to determine why the brothers chose to continue to conceal their origins.

Nobitex did not respond to questions about the brothers' relationship to the Kharrazi family and did not mention the family name in its response. However, a brief email signed by brother Ali came from an email address containing Kharrazi's surname.

Nobitex said: "They come from the family of Aghamir Mohammad Ali and use that name in their daily lives."

Of nine former employees and industry insiders interviewed by Reuters, only one heard directly from the brothers about their family relationship. Another said he found out through his own investigation. Among the most surprised was a former colleague who had known Mohammad for many years and was shocked when Reuters revealed to him the brothers' ties to the Kharrazi family.

Seyed Mohammad Aghamir Mohammad Ali, the younger brother from the Kharrazi family, appears in the Nobitex 2021 annual report. Known as Mohammad, he is the company’s blockchain expert.

“I was quite open in my criticism of the regime, and so were my colleagues,” said another former Nobitex employee. After discovering the brothers’ last names, he said, “I was scared and I made a lot of hateful comments about the regime and the religion.”

According to Iranian news reports, their grandfather was a religious scholar and ayatollah (an honorific title for a senior Shia cleric) who taught Iran's new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This person later joined the Assembly of Experts responsible for selecting Iran's supreme leader. Mojtaba succeeded his father, Khamenei, after his assassination.

Mehdi Kharrazi, on the right, is a businessman. His son Mohsen (left in photo) is a member of the Iran Experts Conference. Mohsen Kharrazi is the grandfather of the founder of Nobitex. The title reads: "Hajj Seyed Mehdi Kharrazi's secret to success: listen to the advice of your elders!"

One of their great uncles served as foreign minister and served as an adviser to successive supreme leaders, including Mojtaba.

Their father, Ayatollah Bagher Kharrazi, is the founder of Iran's Hezbollah, a political and religious organization not related to Iran's better-known proxy group in Lebanon. Bagher, who ran in the 2013 presidential election, wrote on his personal website that he was also involved in staffing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The two brothers' aunt married the brother of the new supreme leader.

A screenshot of Bagher Kharrazi's personal website taken on August 13, 2016, listing his achievements. The Nobitex founder's father also ran for Iran's president in 2013.

Journalist Fariborz Kalantari said there are "inner circles and outer circles" in Iran's clerical system. He was sentenced to prison and 74 lashes in 2021 for reporting on corruption in Iran and now lives abroad. Referring to the Kharrazi family, he said: "These people are members of Khamenei's inner circle."

Kalantari said others, especially those associated with the revolution, had made a habit of using aliases long before 1979, when many anti-Shah activists were jailed alongside jailed guerrillas fighting the monarchy.

Nobitex said in a statement that the brothers "nor their father have ever held any government or military positions." The statement did not name their father.

Despite their distinguished backgrounds, the brothers lived a modest life as students and young entrepreneurs, according to four people who know them. One of them said that when Mohammad bought his first car, he chose the SAIPA Pride, one of the cheapest models in Iran.

The full name of the elder brother Ali is Seyed Mohammad Ali Aghamir Mohammad Ali, and the full name of the younger brother Mohammad is Seyed Mohammad Aghamir Mohammad Ali. Friends have teased them about their long and unusual names, but the brothers have never explained it, according to someone who knows them outside of work.

Rumors about their identities began circulating in 2024, when a Chinese blog reported that the brothers’ father was a major shareholder in the cryptocurrency exchange through his son Mohammad (who uses the surname Aghmir).

When Seyed Mohammad Ali Aghamir Mohammad Ali registered the Nobitex domain name in 2017, he used an email address that contained the surname Kharrazi. The address was also used to register the website of a religious charity chaired by his father. Corporate filings show the older brother, Ali, is listed as vice chairman of the charity. Messages from Ali received by Reuters were also sent through this email address.

A public registration notice for the same charity shows that the founder’s father used two different surnames under the same national identity number. In most records, he uses Kharrazi. But in at least one record from 2011, he went by Aghamir, the same surname used by his sons who later founded Nobitex.

Reuters traced Nobitex’s ties to the Kharrazi family through Iranian business, government and banking records. Artificial intelligence tools were used to extract the names and identification numbers of Nobitex board members and map their relationships. A leaked database cross-checked with national identity numbers confirmed the trio's paternity.

Other members of the family, including the brothers' aunts, uncles and cousins, use the surname Kharrazi in public. The brothers' grandfather also occasionally used the name Aghmir.

Blurred "address"

Nobitex has publicly stated that it aims to enable Iranians to invest in cryptocurrencies "under the shadow of sanctions" and advises clients on how best to avoid having their transactions monitored or intercepted by Western governments.

Nobitex has done business with some of the biggest names in global cryptocurrency. Reuters reported in 2022 that Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, moved $7.8 billion for Nobitex to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was jailed in 2024 for violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws and was pardoned by President Trump in 2025.

Binance did not respond to questions about how it prevents sanctioned Iranian entities from accessing the exchange.

To cover its tracks, Nobitex changes the wallet addresses it uses for fund transfers. Due to "increasing restrictions related to international sanctions," the company also developed cryptographic tools to further obfuscate the connections between related wallets, the younger Kharrazi brothers wrote in Nobitex's 2021 annual report. In addition, Nobitex recommends that customers use multiple wallet addresses for transactions to make it more difficult for Western investigators to trace.

Although Nobitex’s founders had elite connections, from the beginning the company had to juggle the competing demands of Iran’s powerful state institutions, according to former employees.

The Central Bank of Iran has repeatedly banned exchanges, including Nobitex, from accessing the domestic banking system.

Shortly after Nobitex opened in 2018, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps visited the company’s offices in Tehran and questioned then-CEO Raad, according to three former employees. Several years later, the Revolutionary Guards raided again, arresting Rad, confiscating staff laptops and sealing the office, the two said. Two of the employees said there was no indication that Rad had ever been charged.

This is a screenshot of Amir Hosein Rad, one of the co-founders of Nobitex, from a video posted on June 21, 2025. He has been interrogated several times by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Various explanations circulated around the office as to the reasons for the Revolutionary Guards’ repeated visits. One of them said this was in retaliation for Nobitex's refusal to handle Revolutionary Guard funds related to sanctioned oil sales. Two others claimed that a jealous competitor had falsely reported Nobitex to defraud users.

In a December 2025 interview with an Iranian podcast host, Rad said his 2021 arrest involved a misunderstanding about Nobitex's relationship with another company involved in questionable business practices. Rad, who did not name the company, described the arrest as one of the side effects of starting a business in Iran: "I think there are very few Iranian entrepreneurs who haven't experienced something similar."

Six former employees interviewed by Reuters said they knew Nobitex was being used by the Iranian government and its security agencies to circumvent strict Western financial sanctions. Nobitex denied it had any agreement with any government agency, and no employees interviewed by Reuters were aware of such an agreement.

Nobitex said: "We have faced numerous operational restrictions from the Iranian government, including office raids, domain blocking and banking gateway closures. These actions completely contradict our claims that we are receiving any form of government support."

A screenshot of Nobitex’s official Twitter account shows that Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology visited Nobitex in 2018. The company was founded the same year.

Despite the pressure, Nobitex thrived, and so did the Kharrazi brothers' fortunes.

The company moved in 2021 to a luxurious new office with a relaxation area where employees can play video games, watch movies or admire panoramic views of the Alborz Mountains, according to five former employees. Their descriptions matched photos posted by the company on LinkedIn. Female employees are not required to wear headscarves, and offices are open on religious holidays.

A home address linked to Mohammad's national identification number is in one of Tehran's wealthiest neighborhoods.

As of the end of 2022, the exchange said it had 4.3 million users and 268 employees. Sanctions that exclude Iranians from the global financial system have only fueled Nobitex's appeal to its Iranian clients. Essentially, Iranians cannot legally open an account on an exchange like Binance, but they can open an account on Nobitex, which gives them access to a globalized cryptocurrency market that is subject to patchy international regulation.

In 2022, a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died while in police custody for allegedly violating hijab laws. After the resulting nationwide protests, the atmosphere at the company changed.

One former employee said: "The building's security and moral police began checking female employees' headscarves and threatening to seal the office."

Enforcement of the office dress code has since become more stringent, according to two former employees.

“Management became stricter about headscarves and safety rules,” said a person who frequented Nobitex’s offices and is familiar with the founders. “Until then, the company looked like a tech start-up.”

Employee concerns about their employer's relationship with the government deepened after a company linked to one of Nobitex's major investors, Mohammad Bagher Nahvi, was hit with U.S. sanctions for supplying drones to Russia, according to three former employees.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in September 2022 that Safiran Airport Services coordinates "flights between Iran and Russia, including flights related to the transport of Iranian drones, personnel and related equipment." Safiran is a private company whose vice chairman Nahvi is the former chairman of Nobitex and one of the exchange’s earliest and largest investors.

In the 2022 brochure, Ali Kharrazi described Nahvi as an enthusiastic investor who "engaged from the very first meeting." Nahvi did not respond to a Reuters request for comment about his role at Nobitex.

In 2025, a hacker group called Predatory Sparrow launched an attack on Nobitex, and approximately $90 million worth of cryptocurrency was transferred to inaccessible wallets with names bearing the profane anti-Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Nobitex's deep pockets are evident by the fact that the company and its shareholders, including two brothers, directly compensated customers whose funds were stolen.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ involvement in every important aspect of Iran’s economy is bound to take a keen interest in companies like Nobitex that are vital to the economy, according to a former senior U.S. Treasury official who was involved in developing U.S. sanctions policy against Iran.

“Once a business starts to make a profit, you see the government step in and take a piece of the pie,” said Miad Maleki, who worked at the U.S. Treasury Department from 2017 to 2025 and was now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Complaints from prisoners who embezzled public funds

Evidence of how Nobitex fits into Iran's system of evading sanctions has emerged through an unexpected channel: Babak Zanjani, an Iranian billionaire convicted of fraud.

Zanjani has long been a key figure in Iran's sanctions evasion network. He was sentenced to death by Iranian authorities in 2016 for embezzlement, but his sentence was later commuted in 2024. But Zanjani remains embroiled in a public dispute with Iran's central bank, which accuses him of failing to return billions in misappropriated funds.

In a flurry of criticism against the central bank in December 2024, Zanjani published the wallet address on social media, allowing outside cryptocurrency analysts to uncover a complex sanctions evasion scheme in which Nobitex was at the center.

Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani, who was convicted of fraud, criticized Iran's central bank in social media posts. Analysts previously uncovered a sanctions evasion scheme that used Nobitex as a key conduit after documents circulating online disclosed crypto wallet information.

Part of the scheme involved moving at least $20 million in sanctioned central bank funds to wallet addresses controlled by Nobitex, according to Crystal Intelligence's Smart and another cryptocurrency analyst.

Zanjani did not respond to a request for comment.

The transactions were part of a larger network of wallets controlled by Iran’s central bank that purchased more than $500 million in cryptocurrency between November 2024 and June 2025, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

Elliptic said about $347 million of that was remitted to Nobitex by the U.S.-sanctioned Central Bank of Iran in the first half of 2025.

Moving funds through Nobitex after a series of transactions can serve to obscure the source of the funds.

Nobitex said any alleged illicit funds flowing through the exchange represented "a very small percentage of total trading volume" and occurred without the company's knowledge.

The company said: "Once suspicious or irregularities are discovered, Nobitex will take a resolute attitude, including permanently closing the account." The statement did not define "violations."

Babak Zanjani shared a letter. The letter, dated April 30, 2025, written by a bank manager to an official at the Central Bank of Iran, details a cryptocurrency transaction. The letter provided a wallet address that helped analysts uncover a sanctions evasion scheme involving Nobitex.

Estimates of the total amount of Nobitex’s illegal transactions vary widely. The data mainly comes from wallet addresses identified and sanctioned by governments including Israel and the United States.

Elliptic has identified approximately $366 million flowing through the exchange. Chainalysis puts the figure closer to $68 million; Crystal Intelligence estimates direct transfers from sanctioned wallets at $22 million. Even the highest estimate represents only 3% of the total $11 billion in cryptocurrency processed by Nobitex.

All companies caution that the true number may be much higher.

At least two companies among Iran's allies found Nobitex involved in transactions with accounts linked to Yemen's Houthi rebels. Houthi media outlets did not respond to requests for comment on the deal involving Nobitex.

U.S. and Israeli government sanctions have listed dozens of cryptocurrency wallets linked to the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Crystal Intelligence and other private investigators tracked how these wallets moved funds through Nobitex and shared their conclusions and methodology with Reuters.

Iranian sanctioned entities also use other methods to move funds, such as the informal hawala funds transfer system and a complex network of offshore banks. On April 28, the United States issued new sanctions targeting what it described as Iran's "shadow banking system." Nobitex was not included.

But Nobitex’s key role in Iran’s financial system was fully exposed during this year’s war with Israel and the United States.

Most ordinary Iranians have been unable to access the internet since February 28 due to a government blockade imposed to stifle dissent. Yet Nobitex continues to operate. Nobitex did not respond to questions about how it maintained internet access during the lockdown.

Internet monitoring firm Netblocks said only people on a "state-approved whitelist" - between 1% and 2% of the population - were able to access the internet during this period as the country cracked down on satellite links and VPNs.

Crystal Intelligence found that some within this tiny elite group withdrew at least $54 million from the exchange during the war, with much of it going to overseas brokers who converted cryptocurrencies into cash with little to no inquiry.

On April 1, Nobitex issued a message aimed at reassuring customers, stating that customer funds were safe and withdrawable "despite the instability of the infrastructure and service system."

The statement made no direct reference to the war. But that day's conflict had a personal impact on the Kharrazi brothers: an airstrike targeted their great-uncle Kamal's apartment. Kamal was a former foreign minister and an adviser to the current supreme leader and his assassinated father.

His wife died at the scene and Kamal succumbed to his injuries days later, according to national news reports.

Iran's new supreme leader, who lost his wife and father in an airstrike on the first day of the war, expressed his condolences to the Kharrazi family in state media and prayed for God's blessings on the "distinguished Kharrazi family."