US Sanctions Eight Crypto Wallets Linked to Houthi Terror Financing

The United States Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on several cryptocurrency wallets linked to the Yemen-based Houthi movement. This action is part of a broader effort to disrupt financial channels supporting the group's activities, including arms procurement and sanctions evasion. The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, were re-designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US government on February 16, 2024.
The sanctions, announced on April 2, target eight crypto addresses identified by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). These addresses are connected to the Houthi movement's fundraising efforts, which have been used to support attacks in Yemen and the Red Sea region. The Houthis have been mining cryptocurrencies since at least 2017 to bolster their finances, although the impact of this activity remains relatively small.
Blockchain forensic firm TRM Labs, which collaborated with authorities, revealed that on-chain activity from the sanctioned wallets showed millions of dollars flowing to other OFAC-listed entities. This includes addresses linked to Sa’id al-Jamal, a known financial facilitator with ties to militant groups, and several sellers of drone equipment. Israeli authorities had previously identified some of these wallets for their involvement in terror financing. The eight designated wallets are now flagged in TRM’s blockchain intelligence tool, which is used by law enforcement partners globally to monitor high-risk activity.
In a separate report, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis confirmed that the eight addresses had collectively processed nearly $1 billion in illicit crypto. Around $45 million passed through Garantex, a sanctioned Russian exchange that the Houthis used to move funds. Additionally, another $2.5 million went through addresses previously flagged for ties to Hamas. In early March, Garantex announced it would shut down operations, shortly after Tether froze close to $30 million in stablecoins tied to suspicious activity. The platform’s co-founder, Aleksej Besciokov, was arrested two weeks later by Indian police, following a warrant issued by the Patiala House Court in New Delhi.
The latest Houthi designations follow a series of recent OFAC actions aimed at disrupting the use of digital assets in criminal and terrorist financing networks. Last month, OFAC targeted a wider network supporting groups like the IRGC-QF, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, which included six companies, two tankers, and a Lebanese money exchanger, Tawfiq Muhammad Sa’id al-Law, who allegedly provided Hezbollah with cryptocurrency wallets to receive funds from IRGC-linked commodity sales. On March 5, the agency sanctioned an Iranian national for operating Nemesis, a darknet drug marketplace, and blacklisted 49 crypto addresses tied to it. According to OFAC, Nemesis had over 30,000 active users and 1,000 vendors and facilitated the sale of nearly $30 million worth of drugs around the world between 2021 and 2024, including to the US, relying on Bitcoin and Monero.

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