The U.S. Treasury has enacted sanctions against cryptocurrency addresses linked to Russia’s Garantex as part of its ongoing efforts against the Houthis and their financial activities.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control within the U.S. Treasury has targeted eight cryptocurrency addresses that the Houthi foreign terrorist organization allegedly uses to finance operations involving arms acquisition and evading sanctions.
Research from blockchain forensic firms indicates that the Treasury has sanctioned six private wallet addresses alongside two deposit addresses at popular services, which have facilitated nearly $1 billion in illicit transactions. These funds have primarily been used to back the group’s activities in Yemen and across the larger Red Sea area.
On-chain transfer data has revealed that the Houthis have moved over $45 million via Garantex, a Russian exchange identified by the Treasury for its role in facilitating terrorist financing.
Garantex announced its closure in early March, shortly following Tether’s decision to blacklist almost $30 million in stablecoins. A couple of weeks later, Indian authorities apprehended Aleksej Besciokov, co-founder of Garantex, after a warrant was issued by the Patiala House Court in New Delhi. Nevertheless, subsequent reports indicated that Garantex had not been completely dismantled and had reappeared under a different name, Grinex, after shifting assets and customers to the new platform.
Analysis from TRM Labs highlights that on-chain data shows “millions of dollars in volume flowing to other high-risk and OFAC-sanctioned entities,” including Garantex and Sa’id al-Jamal, a financial facilitator based in Iran associated 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, officially known as Ansar Allah, as a foreign terrorist organization, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasizing that the Houthis’ actions “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.”