The US has imposed new sanctions on individuals associated with Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force, as well as several shipping and oil companies.
and thursday statement, the U.S. Treasury Department has named members of revenue-generating networks of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah and the IRGC’s armed forces operating abroad, the Quds Force, that facilitate oil trade. Both of these are under US sanctions.
The network used a storage unit in the United Arab Emirates port of Sharjah to mix Indian-origin products with Iranian oil and obfuscate Iranian oil.
One of the sanctioned individuals was identified as Edman Nafriye, an Iranian national who oversaw a network of dozens of companies controlling the blend. According to the Treasury Department, Nafriye received orders from Iranian officials associated with the US-designated office of the supreme leader to redirect the profits of smuggling operations to companies and bank accounts linked to Hezbollah and his IRGC-QF. received.
“The individuals operating this illegal network are using a network of shell companies and fraudulent tactics, including document falsification, to obfuscate the origin of Iranian oil, sell it on international markets, and impose sanctions. evasion,” said the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Brian E. Nelson.
The new set of sanctions follows OFAC’s May 25 designation of another Iranian oil smuggling network. The network is led by his US-appointed IRGC-QF official Behnam Shahriyari and former IRGC-QF official Rostam Ghasemi (now Minister of Roads), and is supported by senior Russian officials. bureaucrats and state economic institutions.
