A Polish company and its Iranian head have been placed on a US sanctions list over alleged links to a global network that helped Iran bypass financial restrictions.
According to Gazeta Wyborcza, Shelbit Technologies was registered in Warsaw and has been identified by American authorities as part of an international operation using digital assets and companies in several countries to move payments without attracting undue attention.
The case places a Warsaw-registered business at the centre of a network whose activity allegedly extended across Europe and the Middle East. US authorities say the wider Shelbit group was connected to structures in Georgia, Dubai and Tehran, and that transactions routed through the network may have reached as much as $4bn.
A European address for a wider network
Shelbit Technologies was headed from 2024 by Siavash Kaivanpour, an Iranian citizen. The company formed part of the broader Shelbit group, which was linked to entities operating in several jurisdictions. The American sanctions designation covers both the Polish company and Kaivanpour.
The funds associated with the network have been linked to Iran’s central bank and illegal online gambling. Some digital-wallet addresses connected to the operation have also been associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the report.
The scale of the alleged activity is significant, but the materials do not establish that Shelbit Technologies itself directly transferred the money. Its possible role was instead to provide the network with a legitimate-looking European presence.
Registration in an EU member state may have increased confidence in the wider operation and helped associated actors open accounts with financial institutions. The company’s presence in Warsaw could therefore have functioned less as a payment channel than as a means of lending credibility to a network operating across multiple countries.
Registration that created an appearance of legitimacy
Shelbit was also entered in Poland’s register of companies dealing in virtual currencies. Such registration could create the impression that it was an ordinary, lawful European digital-asset business, even as US authorities examined its alleged links to sanctions evasion.
That distinction is central to the case. A company does not necessarily need to handle the money itself to be useful to a financial network. A registered address, a local corporate identity and access to the reputation of the European market can help make other transactions appear less suspicious.
The US action therefore raises questions about how easily a company with an apparently formal presence in Europe can become part of a much larger arrangement. The alleged network relied on a combination of corporate structures, digital assets and cross-border operations, making responsibility and the movement of funds harder to identify from any single jurisdiction.
A second Warsaw case in ten months
The Shelbit case is the second similar discovery in Poland within ten months. An earlier company found in the Polish register, Huione Crypto, was linked to a Cambodian cartel that had been sanctioned by the US.
Both companies were registered at the same address in Warsaw. The shared location does not by itself establish that they carried out the same activities, but it adds to the significance of the latest case and highlights the importance of the corporate details attached to firms operating in the digital-currency sector.
For Poland, the issue is not simply whether a company listed in a national register directly moved sanctioned funds. It is also whether formal registration can be used to provide a veneer of credibility to international networks whose transactions are conducted elsewhere. The American designation has brought that potential vulnerability into sharper focus, while the precise extent of Shelbit Technologies’ role remains the key unresolved point.
Should registration in an EU member state carry greater scrutiny when a company’s wider network operates across high-risk jurisdictions?
