By Noureddine Omar | 2026-05-18

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) actively pursues currency exchange hubs utilized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for money laundering and transfer.

These illicit funds finance the IRGC's critical foreign agendas, supporting their controversial nuclear program and essential ballistic missile projects.

Financial backing flows to IRGC proxies, enabling them to acquire weapons and raw materials for manufacturing explosives, drones, and missiles.

These exchange networks were established in Dubai specifically to evade international sanctions by laundering billions derived from petrochemical and oil sales.

Operations rely on an interconnected chain of moneychangers–"sarrafeen"using thousands of fictitious business fronts and shell companies registered in UAE free zones.

The main objective is to obscure any transactional link between these funds and sanctioned entities like the IRGC's Quds Force.

"The IRGC utilizes legitimate and illicit currency exchange companies across the UAE to launder and transfer funds for its activities," retired Emirati army officer Abdullah al-Ameri told Al-Fassel.

"The simple operation involves a sender depositing cash at a Sarraf [money changer] in one city for a secret code, which the recipient receives," he explained.

The recipient then provides this code to a counterpart Sarraf in another city to collect the equivalent funds, minus a commission, he added.

Rigorous scrutiny and focused intelligence gathering ultimately expose these discreet transactions, leading to arrests and identification of worldwide front companies affiliated with the IRGC.

Authorities subsequently intercept funds channeled back to the Iranian regime or used to procure prohibited weapons and materials for proxies across the Middle East.