U.S. sanctions Canadian money-exchange businesses allegedly connected to Iranian regime, Ryan Wedding

The United States government has announced sanctions against several Canadian currency-exchange businesses accused of helping the Iranian regime and, in several cases, also helping the alleged head of a drug trafficking ring. The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Friday said eight Canadian businesses had helped Iranian entities get around financial sanctions. It said some also helped launder proceeds of crime by changing Iranian rials and other currencies into digital assets, like crypto.

"Canada cannot be a safe haven for illicit financial facilitators that provide sanctions evasion services to the Iranian regime and its proxies," Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent wrote in a statement. The sanctions effectively cut the Canadian firms off from the U.S. dollar-based financial system, blocking any assets ​the firms might have south of the border and banning any ​transactions with American people or entities. In its statement, the treasury said the crackdown is part of a wider effort to "sever the economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime" and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is listed as a terrorist organization in Canada .

The Treasury identified the sanctioned businesses in Ontario and British Columbia as the following: The statement said the companies gave the Iranian regime "financial lifelines" by providing their services. In several cases, officials said the businesses have changed their names and addresses to avoid detection. In August, the Trump administration expanded secondary sanctions its government can impose on ‌entities and countries maintaining business connections with Iran, raising the economic pressure on Tehran as the war neared its six-month mark.

"​Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran ⁠stands alone," Bessent said at the time. In addition, the statement said three of those businesses helped Ryan Wedding — the Olympian-turned-alleged-drug-kingpin — hide money by laundering bulk cash into digital assets. Ultimately, the treasury said companies sent millions of dollars worth of digital funds abroad before Wedding was arrested in January .

CBC News has contacted Wedding's lawyer for comment.