United States of America v. Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale

New York City, New York criminal defense lawyers will represented the Defendant accused of using cryptocurrency to launder more than $1.5 billion in illicit oil money intended to benefit Iran.

Two Chinese companies, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, used trading accounts at the UAE-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance to launder the proceeds of black-market sales of Iranian oil, funneling the illicit funds to the Government of Iran, its agents, and/or its proxies, where they were used to finance terrorist and other activities of the Iranian government. Though Blessed Trust represents itself to financial services and cryptocurrency services providers as a wealth management or virtual asset custodial services firm, in fact it received and transferred the proceeds of sales of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products and provided “on-ramp” services to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrency, including through the use of U.S.-based cryptocurrency issuers. Hexa Whale similarly holds itself out as a commodities brokering company, but in fact provided similar services as Blessed Trust, working in concert with Blessed Trust and its affiliates. Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale’s clients include companies in China’s petroleum and petroleum products sector.

A series of interrelated unhosted cryptocurrency addresses, termed the “Entity A” addresses, have received and distributed more than approximately $1.5 billion of proceeds of the illicit sale of Iranian oil. Entity A has funneled Iranian oil money to IRGC-related money services businesses, IRGC-related cryptocurrency addresses, and an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange. These transfers of Iranian oil proceeds were facilitated in large part by Blessed Trust, Hexa Whale, and individuals associated with those entities, through transactions and cryptocurrency addresses designed and executed to obfuscate the nature, source, and ownership of the funds involved. Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale have also used the U.S. financial system to send or receive tens of millions of dollars as part of this scheme.

An allegation in a criminal complaint is not proof of wrongdoing.