Washington sanctioned nearly 50 people and organizations that make up “multiple branches of a sprawling ‘shadow banking’ network” used by Iran’s defense ministry and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Iranian regime uses the network “to gain illicit access to the international financial system and process the equivalent of billions of dollars since 2020,” the U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday.
“The United States is taking action against a vast shadow banking system used by Iran’s military to launder billions of dollars of oil proceeds and other illicit revenue,” stated Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the Treasury.
According to the U.S. State Department, the “Iranian regime uses its profits to advance a wide range of destabilizing activities, including terrorism, lethal plotting and transnational repression; the development, procurement and proliferation of advanced weapons systems; extensive human rights abuses; and nuclear activities that lack any credible peaceful purpose.”
“In particular, this ‘shadow banking’ revenue supports the Iranian regime’s transfer of weapons and funds to its militant proxies and partners in the Middle East region, including Yemen’s Houthis, who continue a campaign of reckless attacks on global shipping, as well as the transfer of deadly weapons to Russia for use in its war of aggression against Ukraine,” Foggy Bottom added.
Those sanctioned are based in Iran, Turkey, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands.
