The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an order on Friday effectively cutting off MEXC Global’s access to the US financial system, as part of the department’s Operation Economic Outcast. FinCEN said the convertible virtual currency exchanger facilitated at least $16 billion in illicit transactions between May 2021 and May 2026, including nearly $1.5 billion linked to Russian sanctions evasion and about $1 billion in direct transactions with more than 40 Iranian exchangers, among them about $22 million for the sanctioned Central Bank of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force.
The order, issued under section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, prohibits US financial institutions from any transmittal of funds from or to MEXC Global and takes effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. Treasury said MEXC, founded in 2018, processed more than $1 billion in daily transactions as of September 2026 and held about $5 billion in reserves, and that it was still processing transactions with the sanctioned Russian exchanger Garantex and its successor Grinex as recently as June 2026.