US levies secondary sanctions on Iran banking networks

The new measures include 22 entities accused of violating US sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as the Trump administration continues to hit out at sources of revenue for the Iranian state.

“The Iranian regime relies heavily on its shadow banking system to fund its destabilizing nuclear and ballistic missile weapons programs, rather than for the benefit of the Iranian people,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent send in a statement.

“Treasury remains focused on disrupting this shadowy infrastructure that allows Iran to threaten the United States and our allies in the region,” he added.

The IRGC is designated by the US as Foreign Terrorist Organization. The Quds Force also known as IRGC-QF which is a unit of the IRGC is also designated in the same list.

According to US treasury statement, the IRGC-QF uses front companies outside Iran to secretly move money from oil sales through offshore accounts. These funds, often worth hundreds of millions of dollars, help Iran evade sanctions and support terrorist groups and weapons programs across the Middle East.

The Treasury earlier this month sanctioned an international network accused of smuggling billions of dollars' worth of Iranian oil disguised as originating form Iraq.

Also blacklisted were several vessels allegedly involved in secretly transporting Iranian oil, in the latest US move aimed at Iran’s so-called shadow fleet.

The Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran focuses mostly on the country’s most critical revenue source, oil sales.

All US-linked assets of the targeted entities have been frozen, and Americans are prohibited from conducting business with them. The designations also expose foreign firms to secondary sanctions, raising the cost of facilitating Iran’s oil trade.