Source published November 7, 2026, at 05:06:03 UTC+08:00. This is a historical report, not a live market update.
The U.S. Treasury Department issued an order through its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Friday to bar U.S. financial institutions from processing funds transfers to or from crypto exchange MEXC Global. The restriction takes effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, rather than immediately upon announcement.
Treasury accused MEXC of facilitating at least $16 billion in illicit transactions between May 2021 and May 2026, with connections to Iran, North Korea and Russia. The action forms part of a broader campaign called Operation Economic Outcast.
Exchange scale and alleged exposure
According to FinCEN, MEXC was founded in 2018, ranks among the world’s 20 largest crypto exchanges, processes more than $1 billion in daily transactions, holds around $5 billion in reserves and offers more than 3,000 tokens.
Within the activity it identified, FinCEN reported:
- Nearly $1.5 billion tied to Russian sanctions evasion, including $232 million in direct transactions with sanctioned entities.
- Roughly $200 million linked to the A7A5 stablecoin.
- About $22 million benefiting Iran’s central bank and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The agency designated MEXC a “primary money laundering concern” in connection with Russian illicit finance. It alleged “severe deficiencies” in the exchange’s compliance, despite MEXC’s public claims of anti-money-laundering controls and restrictions on users in jurisdictions including Iran and North Korea.
FinCEN also said MEXC continued transacting with sanctioned Russian exchange Garantex and its successor, Grinex, as recently as June 2026—more than four years after Garantex was first designated.
A financial-access restriction, not a price signal
The order uses a provision of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, rather than a standard sanctions designation. The source describes this as a tool FinCEN has increasingly used against crypto infrastructure operating outside the correspondent banking system.
For market context, the reported development concerns MEXC’s access to U.S. financial institutions. The article supplies no price, order-book liquidity, sentiment or subsequent fund-flow readings, so it does not establish how the restriction affected trading conditions.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the action as part of efforts to sever Iran’s economic lifelines and prevent digital assets from being used to evade sanctions.
The wider enforcement campaign
The report also places the MEXC order alongside Treasury’s October 2026 designation of Russia’s A7 Network as a transnational criminal organization and its proposal to cut the network’s front companies off from U.S. finance. Treasury flagged more than $179 billion in transactions through the ruble-backed A7A5 token, much of it routed through Garantex and Grinex.
In Iran, the same campaign included expanded authority to sanction anyone operating in the country’s crypto sector and the blacklisting of exchange Nobitex over its role in funneling crypto to the IRGC.