On Thursday, August 20, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced in an official statement the imposition of new sanctions against a broad and complex money-smuggling network operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Lebanese Hezbollah. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promised the most severe sanctions in history against the Iranian regime for the following Monday.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury said the sanctions target 10 individuals for facilitating and physically transferring hundreds of millions of dollars in cash for the “IRGC Quds Force” and “Lebanese Hezbollah.”
U.S. Sanctions Cryptocurrency Exchange Network Linked to Iran’s regime
According to the U.S. Treasury Department statement, nine Turkish citizens and one Iranian citizen named Masoud Mosafer were added to the U.S. sanctions list on suspicion of links to Lebanese Hezbollah or the IRGC Quds Force.
According to the information released in the statement, the 10 individuals resided in Turkey or the United Arab Emirates.
Details of the covert financial network and the central role of regional currency exchanges
OFAC said the Iranian regime used currency exchanges based in Turkey, front companies, and financial couriers traveling on commercial flights between Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon to launder money and evade sanctions.
The individuals targeted by OFAC include three people linked to the Quds Force and seven linked to Hezbollah, mostly Turkish and Emirati nationals along with one Iranian national. The main manager of this covert financial network is a Turkish businessman.
Washington announced that it had once again designated Lebanese Hezbollah for sanctions because of its subordination to and direct services for the IRGC Quds Force.
The broad OFAC sanctions carry legal consequences for the sanctioned network and its associated individuals and entities. These include blocking all assets belonging to these individuals in the United States and prohibiting any transactions with them. Foreign financial institutions that cooperate with this network also face the risk of losing access to the U.S. financial system through secondary sanctions.
At the same time, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a warning. Referring to the new sanctions, he said Washington was finalizing a package described as the most severe sanctions in history against the Iranian regime. According to Bessent, comprehensive details of this unprecedented sanctions package will be officially released next Monday.
U.S. Actions and the Response of the Mullahs’ Foreign Ministry
On August 14, the U.S. Treasury secretary had also announced that the U.S. government intended to take measures against the Iranian regime that, he said, would be unprecedented in the history of a country’s economic isolation.
It is noteworthy that about 80% of the Iranian regime’s foreign-exchange transactions take place in Dubai, making the city one of the regime’s main sources of access to foreign currency.
Meanwhile, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on August 22 that the United States was currently entering new stages of economic pressure and sanctions against the Iranian regime, and that new sanctions and economic pressure would be the next step in U.S. policy toward Tehran.
In response, Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for the Iranian regime’s Foreign Ministry, said in a post on X, referring to the Trump administration’s “economic operation” against the mullahs, that accepting economic sanctions accompanied by a naval blockade could lead to the “complete erosion of national sovereignty.”
He wrote: “No government has the right to compel foreign banks, businesses, or airports, each of which falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of its own sovereign authority, to refrain from legitimate trade with a third country. Economic coercion aimed at forcing an independent government to change its legitimate policy choices is a crime and an internationally wrongful act.”
