U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on Iranian Financier and Exchange Entities

On July 10, Reuters reported that the United States unveiled additional sanctions against Iran after Tehran resumed attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Treasury Department.

The measures focus on Ali Ansari, an Iranian banker and businessman residing in Dubai who had previously been blacklisted by the United Kingdom for financing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, among other parties.

Treasury labeled Ansari a “key financier” for Iran’s emerging leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, accusing him of diverting state assets into a sprawling overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial enterprises to enrich himself, government officials, and the IRGC.

Additionally, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned several Iranian exchange houses that allegedly move billions of dollars each year for sanctioned Iranian banks, employing layered shell companies to conceal illicit financial flows.

The announcement came amid a lull following a week of heightened tensions, during which Iranian forces fired on three Qatari and Saudi tankers, prompting U.S. strikes on Iranian facilities and retaliatory Iranian attacks on U.S. military installations in the Gulf.

(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Andrea Shalal; Writing by Christian Martinez; Editing by Katharine Jackson)

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