The U.S. Treasury Department said it had cut crypto exchange MEXC Global off from the U.S. financial system over allegations that it supported $16 billion in transactions connected to Iran, North Korea and Russia, according to The Block’s report published on November 6, 2026.
Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, issued an order against the exchange on Friday, identifying it as a money laundering concern. MEXC said it continued to operate normally and that user assets were secure.
Treasury alleges shortcomings in anti-money laundering controls
According to Treasury, MEXC had “severe deficiencies” in its anti-money laundering controls despite saying it maintained such controls and would block users in countries including Iran and North Korea.
“Financial institutions cannot have it both ways: Either you support the Iranian regime, or you have access to the U.S. financial system,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. He added that Treasury would continue efforts to prevent Iran from circumventing U.S. sanctions through digital assets.
The department said the action would protect the U.S. financial system from illicit-finance threats it attributed to MEXC Global. The allegations are Treasury’s findings as reported by The Block, rather than a court ruling described in the source.
MEXC says deposits and withdrawals continue
In a Friday post on X, MEXC said operations were continuing normally and user assets remained secure. CEO Vugar Usi said deposits and withdrawals were continuing and that the platform was taking FinCEN’s concerns seriously.
“We have indeed seen an increase in withdrawal volumes, but everything has remained orderly,” Usi said in a post on X that the source identifies as having been published on Saturday.
Part of a broader Iran-focused enforcement campaign
The report placed the MEXC action within Treasury’s crackdown over the preceding year on crypto platforms allegedly helping Iran evade sanctions, amid the ongoing U.S. war against Iran.
In June 2026, Treasury sanctioned Nobitex, described in the report as Iran’s largest crypto exchange, after alleging that it had processed more than half of Iran’s crypto inflows in 2025. In September, the United States sanctioned Iranian exchange BitBank over alleged bitcoin transfers to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Source and timing: Original article — The Block. Supplied publication timestamp: November 6, 2026, at 21:01:28 UTC (November 7 at 05:01:28 UTC+8). The article also carries an update note stating that MEXC’s comments were added at 14:45 UTC; no date is given for that update.