The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned eight Canada-based money services businesses on Nov. 6 for allegedly helping Iran evade sanctions. The firms exchanged Iranian rial and cryptocurrencies and facilitated international transactions involving Iran, while many dealt with sanctioned Iranian crypto exchanges or addresses linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The action also covers firms allegedly involved in laundering funds for a former Olympic athlete who was a drug trafficker. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT said Nia Nations (NNCE) and Million Exchange (MillionEx) were among the sanctioned firms and had been used to launder crypto assets in recent violent home-invasion and extortion cases. In a Telegram post reported by PANews on Nov. 8, he criticized Canada as one of the three worst-regulated jurisdictions globally and said he had urged the Treasury five months earlier to sanction Canadian Iranian OTC traders.