The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was imposing new sanctions on Thursday on a Syrian conglomerate accused of funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran.
The Al-Qatirji Company allegedly used a fleet of oil tankers to sell Iranian oil to Syria and China, ultimately benefiting the Houthis in Yemen and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.
“The Al-Qatirji Company enabled the IRGC-QF to generate and access hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue this year alone,” stated Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman. “The Al-Qatirji Company launders revenue from selling Iranian oil and then provides millions of dollars per month to the Houthis, knowingly funding attacks carried out by the Houthis.”
According to the U.S. Treasury, the company exports millions of barrels of oil annually and then launders the money through cities like Beirut and Istanbul before splitting it between Iran and the Houthis.
“Iran is increasingly relying on key business partners like the Al-Qatirji Company to fund its destabilizing activities and web of terrorist proxies across the region,” stated Bradley Smith, acting under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
In total, Treasury sanctioned 26 individuals, companies and entities related to Al-Qatirji.
Most of the 11 oil tankers involved in the scheme were previously identified by the United Against Nuclear Iran advocacy group as part of Iran’s “ghost fleet” of sanctions-evading oil tankers.
One of the questions that the incoming Trump administration will face is whether and how to increase economic pressure on Iran’s oil smuggling network and the refineries in China that purchase Iranian petroleum.
Brian Hook, the former U.S. special representative for Iran in the first Trump administration who is reportedly leading the incoming administration’s transition at the State Department, suggested in a CNN interview on Friday that a second Trump term would include more economic and military pressure on Iran than what the Biden administration has done.
“President Trump understands that the chief driver of instability in today’s Middle East is the Iranian regime,” Hook said. “What President Trump did say in Riyadh was that he would isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken them economically so that they can’t fund all of the violence that’s going on with the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and these proxies that run around Iraq and Syria today, all of whom destabilize Israel and our Gulf partners.”
