The order finds MEXC Global a primary money laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance, citing about $16.7 billion in flows FinCEN links to sanctions evasion, Iranian exchangers and cybercrime. It takes effect 30 days after Federal Register publication, which had not happened as of Friday evening.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a final order on Friday that prohibits US financial institutions from moving money to or from MEXC Global, after finding the Seychelles-incorporated exchange to be a "primary money laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance." The operative provision runs to a single sentence: "A covered financial institution is prohibited from engaging in any transmittal of funds from or to MEXC Global."
The prohibition reaches institutions covered by the definition at 31 CFR 1010.100(t), and FinCEN wrote it to cover sending and receiving convertible virtual currency rather than conventional wires alone. It applies to MEXC Global, its subsidiaries, its branches and offices outside the United States and its successors, and names affiliates including MEXC Global Ltd and MX Global Ltd in Seychelles, MEXC Estonia OÜ, GIDA Technology AG in Switzerland and MXC Global Ltd in the United Kingdom. Affiliates located in the United States are expressly excluded. Deputy Director Jimmy L. Kirby signed the order.
None of it is in force yet. The order takes effect 30 days after it appears in the Federal Register, and the version FinCEN released carries a placeholder where that date will go. The notice had not been published as of Friday evening, so the 30-day clock had not started. The order sets no expiration date.
FinCEN acted under section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, as amended by the 2022 defense authorization act, which lets the bureau impose special measures on an institution it finds to be a primary money laundering concern connected to Russian illicit finance. The bureau said it weighed the five special measures available under 31 U.S.C. 5318A, including restrictions on correspondent accounts, and concluded none would be adequate. It chose an order rather than a rulemaking because of what it called an ongoing threat. This is not an OFAC designation, and the order states that it leaves existing Bank Secrecy Act obligations and OFAC rules unchanged.
The headline figure is about $16.7 billion in funds the order ties to Russian illicit finance and other illicit activity between May 2021 and May 2026. Treasury's own announcement described it as at least $16 billion, according to Bitcoin Magazine and BlockchainReporter. The component findings beneath that total do not add up to it and are not meant to, because several categories overlap and they cover different periods. The more than $13 billion the order attributes to dealings with four UK-sanctioned exchangers, for instance, spans May 2018 to July 2026, a window three years longer than the headline one.
Within the total, the order attributes about $1.5 billion of direct and indirect exposure to Russian sanctions evasion, including $232 million in transactions it says went straight to entities sanctioned by the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom. Garantex received about $129 million and its successor Grinex about $4.1 million, both after they were designated, with dealings continuing as late as June 2026. At least $26 million benefited the A7 network, and close to $200 million was tied to the A7A5 ruble-backed stablecoin. The European Union banned crypto services for Russian providers outright in its 20th sanctions package in May.
The Iran findings are larger in dollar terms, though the two categories are defined differently and are not directly comparable. The order records about $1.87 billion in Iran exposure, more than $1 billion of it in direct transactions with over 40 Iranian virtual currency exchangers. About $22 million is linked to the Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, and about $36 million to the Al-Qassam Brigades and other Iran-linked groups. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in October that the government was closing in on about $1 billion of Iranian crypto.
Two further findings involve much smaller sums. About $350,000 reached Sim Hyon Sop, a North Korean money launderer under US sanctions, between June and September 2025, more than two years after his designation. Separately the order attributes at least $1.99 billion to illicit cyber actors, including $37.9 million in ransomware payments received between January 2022 and July 2024.
The order puts MEXC's transaction volume above $1 billion a day as of June 2026 and its share of centralized exchange volume at about 9 percent as of December 2025. Regulators in Seychelles, Hong Kong and Japan have each found the company operating without a license, and Bitcoin Magazine reported that the UK's Financial Conduct Authority added MEXC Global Ltd to its warning list in March 2024.
Willful violations of the order can carry civil or criminal penalties under 31 U.S.C. 5321 and 5322. FinCEN said it shared draft materials with the Justice and State departments, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the SEC, the CFTC, the OCC and the National Credit Union Administration, and that none objected. MEXC had issued no public response as of Friday evening, according to both Bitcoin Magazine and BlockchainReporter.
A further provision permits covered institutions to reject certain virtual currency transfers, including funds that have sat in unhosted wallets for extended periods. FinCEN withdrew its proposed rules on mixing services and unhosted wallets in October, which left banks' existing obligations unchanged, and this order touches unhosted wallets only as a rejection allowance inside a prohibition aimed at one company.
