How this works:

Iranians in Iran find a trusted Iranian in U.S. who will receive USD in his bank account, then use those funds to buy Gift Cards (online / spendable electronically) and physical (delivered to Iran).

Iranians in Iran find third parties in other countries to send USD to the U.S. bank account of the Iranian in the U.S.

What the article doesn't describe, is how and why these third parties sent USD to the Iranian in the U.S.

This matches well with "third party" P2P trading on Paxful or other KYC-free P2P trading platforms. The seller of bitcoin, (the Iranians in Iran) provide to the buyer of the bitcoin the name and bank account number of the Iranian in the U.S. The Iranian in the U.S. only needs to let the Iranians in Iran know when the funds arrive, and they release the BTC to the "third party" / buyer. The Iranian in the U.S. then withdraws the cash and buys gift cards with cash, and sends the code (secret) from the gift card to the Iranians in Iran.

The gift cards were likely used for online purchases for luxury items then received in Iran and those items resold for cash.

The bitcoin were likely received as payment for commodities or weapons -- possibly through corporations or intermediaries.

It may not have been exactly like this, but this is how bitcoin held by Iranians can be spent within the country.

Whoah ... they build a Windows (and Linux, & Mac) Desktop app now?

Wen Lightning?

Ok, just to confirm, this is still just the normal protocol, but where the buyer paying on-chain BTC then receives via LN ?

i.e., not the planned Bisq Lightning feature?

Darknet markets aren't just for illegal shit on Tor, you acid-soaked fool.

The buying and selling of cash can be an activity performed on platforms which help you maintain your financial privacy. Two of these, Bisq and RoboSats, can be considered darknet markets too.

So you are referring to either Bisq or HodlHodl?

It's in there:

$50 minimum trade size.

As the buyer of cash? (i.e., paying with bitcoin? )

Do you know how to detect a bleached bill that has been re-printed as a $100 ?

Your pen says it is legit.

Tips for local transactions https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137272.msg1463290#msg1463290

You want to avoid being included in the following list:

Known Physical Bitcoin Attacks https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks/blob/master/README.md

SafeTrade Stations https://www.safetradestations.com/where-to-trade.html

While I couldn't give two shits about Litecoin itself, I do care about low fee methods for converting Bitcoin into Fiat in places where there are few to no exchanges.

I can once again do a swap between LN and LTC, and then sell the LTC on LocalCoinSwap. (And vice-versa for a way to buy Bitcoin)

LTC trading used to be possible on LocalCoinSwsp for years, but LocalCoinSwap then dropped all their custodial trading methods. It took on-chain fees for Bitcoin going to high levels before LocalCoinSwap decided they had to add LTC back as well.

This is in addition to the multiple on-chain transaction fees ... involved in each trade.