OFAC sanctions crypto addresses linked to Russia’s Garantex to disrupt Houthi financing

The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on crypto addresses associated with Russia’s Garantex in its latest action against the Houthis and their funding operations.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has imposed sanctions on eight cryptocurrency addresses used by the Houthi foreign terrorist organization to finance activities like arms procurement and sanctions evasion.

Data from blockchain forensic firms Chainalysis and TRM Labs shows that the regulator sanctioned six private wallet addresses and two deposit addresses at mainstream services that have moved nearly $1 billion in illicit transactions. These transactions were largely aimed at supporting the group’s activities in Yemen and the broader Red Sea region.

On-chain transfer data shows that the Houthis moved over $45 million through Garantex, a Russia-based exchange, which was flagged by OFAC for facilitating terrorist financing.

Garantex announced its closure in early March, shortly after Tether blacklisted nearly $30 million in stablecoins. Two weeks later, Indian police arrested Aleksej Besciokov, co-founder of Garantex, following an arrest warrant issued by the Patiala House Court in New Delhi. However, multiple reports later suggested that Garantex hadn’t been fully disrupted and had actually resurfaced under a new name, Grinex, after transferring funds and users to the new platform.

TRM Labs says on-chain analysis shows “millions of dollars in volume flowing to other high-risk and OFAC-sanctioned entities,” including Garantex and Sa’id al-Jamal, an Iran-based financial facilitator affiliated with both the Houthis and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force.

In late January, U.S. President Donald Trump re-designated Yemen’s Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, as a foreign terrorist organization, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio stating that the Houthis’ activities “threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade.”