How an IRGC-linked money laundering network operated from London

More than 75 days after Iran imposed sweeping internet restrictions, tens of millions of Iranians remain cut off from the outside world. The blackout has severed ordinary communications, disrupted online businesses and deepened the sense of isolation inside a country already battered by war, sanctions, inflation and a growing shortage of hard currency.

Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, says she found in a 2022 report that around 11 million Iranians had online businesses, including many women seeking financial independence through handicrafts, catering, Instagram sales or influencer work.

“This internet shutdown has gravely impacted people,” she told the Eye for Iran podcast, adding that Iranian officials themselves have said 20% of the country’s 30 million-strong workforce has been affected.

Iranian e-commerce platforms, ride-hailing services, streaming platforms and online retailers have all been hit, she said, with hundreds of jobs lost as a result of the blackout.

Dagres said the shutdown also reflects Tehran’s effort to control the information space, not only its stated security concerns. “It’s really not about national security. It’s about who you decide gets control of the internet,” she said.

A self-inflicted economic wound

Siamak Javadi, an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Texas, said the blackout is not just a political tool but an economic shock inflicted by the state on an already fragile economy.

“The Iranian economy was already in shambles, and you’re inflicting even more damage to the economy by shutting down the internet,” he told the podcast.

Javadi put the economic damage in starker terms. Citing Iranian estimates, he said each minute of internet shutdown costs the economy around $1.5 million in direct losses, or about $80 million a day.

But he said the indirect costs are even more damaging.

“It kills jobs. It kills opportunities. It kills planning,” he said. “If there was any project that they were thinking about undertaking, those projects are going to basically shut down.”

For a developing economy, Javadi said, small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of economic life. Shutting down the internet in the middle of a currency crisis and wartime economic shock, he said, amounts to “deliberately killing the economy.”

“It’s like a deliberate, sober decision to kill the economy and basically keep people to fight for their basic necessities,” he said.

The blockade clock

While the internet blackout is damaging the economy from within, Javadi said the US blockade is squeezing the Islamic Republic from the outside by limiting access to oil revenue and foreign currency.

He said Iran’s economy was already weakened before the war by structural problems including corruption, fiscal deficits, capital flight, money-printing and a long-running depreciation of the rial.

The war, he said, added a major supply-side shock and sharply reduced Tehran’s ability to rely on oil income to defend its currency or finance the state.

“What happened during the war, on top of all of these preexisting conditions, is that basically overnight, Iran’s access to oil revenue kind of evaporated,” Javadi said.

He said the blockade is costing Iran an estimated $450 million a day, which he rounded to roughly $12 billion to $15 billion a month.

“That’s substantial for an economy that is like between $350 billion to $400 billion GDP,” he said.

Javadi argued that the Islamic Republic is “definitely on the clock,” especially as oil exports become more limited, more costly and less efficient. With reduced access to oil revenue, limited tax income and small businesses crippled by the blackout, he said the government may eventually struggle to finance even its security apparatus.

“They may not be able to even pay their own security forces and their institution of suppression,” he said.

Still, he warned that the regime does not operate like a normal government. It may allow ordinary economic life to collapse so long as it can preserve the core institutions needed to stay in power.

“They may run out of money to run a business in a normal way. But it doesn’t matter to them,” Javadi said. “As long as they can finance their security forces, they will hold on to power.”

He said that could mean cutting back pensions or leaving ordinary people unable to afford basic necessities while the state prioritizes its coercive machinery.

But the question is not only how long Tehran can keep funding the state under blockade. It is also what kind of economy Iranians are being forced into: one more isolated, more monitored and increasingly cut off from the outside world.

Permanent isolation

Dagres warned that the internet shutdown may be moving Iran toward a more permanent model of isolation.

She said Iran’s domestic internet infrastructure is already functioning in parts of daily life, including banking, ride-hailing and local messaging apps. But those services are monitored, she said, and cannot replace access to the outside world.

“It’s not really hyperbolic anymore” for Iranians to compare the situation to North Korea, Dagres said.

“This seems like this might become the new normal, where only an elite few will have access to the outside world, and everybody else will be living behind this digital wall,” she said.

That wall, she added, is devastating not only psychologically but economically.

For both experts, the crisis facing Iran is therefore not simply the result of outside pressure. The US blockade may be choking off state revenue, but Tehran’s own blackout is choking the businesses, workers and families the state claims to protect.

Parham Mehrabi, 18, was killed by direct fire from security forces in Mashhad on January 8, 2026, while standing alongside his father, sources familiar with the matter told Iran International.

His death occurred during the January Massacre, a nationwide crackdown on anti-establishment protests that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people across Iran.

Witnessing the shooting from just a few meters away, Parham's father immediately retrieved his son’s body.

Continue reading

According to accounts received by Iran International, the use of gunfire under the cover of darkness resulted in dozens of fatalities during these two nights.

These events were part of the January Massacre, a nationwide suppression of anti-establishment protests that led to thousands of deaths across Iran.

Amirhossein Zeinali, a 26-year-old conscripted soldier, was one of the first victims identified from the evening of January 8.

Zeinali had only recently begun his mandatory military service when he was shot by security forces in front of Police Station 12.

According to local witnesses, he was not participating in the demonstrations but was targeted by direct gunfire while he was attempting to help a woman who had been wounded by earlier shots.

100%

Amirhossein Khodadadi, 27, was also killed during the darkness of the January 8 crackdown.

Khodadadi was a cafe staff who, along with his fiancée, had been working long hours to save money for their dream of opening an independent business.

Following his death, government authorities withheld his body for a full week, only releasing it to his family after significant pressure.

100%

Omid Ghasemi Nafchi, 37, died after being struck by a military-grade bullet to the heart during the protests in Najafabad.

A father of two children, aged five and ten, his body was eventually transported to the city of Shahrekord for interment following the fatal shooting.

100%

Mahmoud Maleki, a 38-year-old truck driver, was killed by a direct shot to his side.

His grave in Najafabad bears the inscription "Bahar's Dear Father" (Baba Jan-e Bahar). This refers to his young daughter, who, according to family sources, fulfilled her goal of reading aloud to him by reciting at his graveside after his death.

100%

Vahid Shahrashoub was killed the following morning, January 9, in the vicinity of the Najafabad cemetery.

Shahrashoub, a local vendor, witnessed security forces using municipal waste management trucks to transport the remains of those killed during the previous night's operations, according to sources familiar with the matter.

After he vocally protested the use of these vehicles, security agents shot him in the head and placed his body into the same waste truck.

100%

The operational approach in Najafabad – coordinating utility blackouts with armed intervention and using non-standard vehicles for transporting remains – mirrors reporting from other protest hubs during the January Massacre.

These methods were utilized by security forces to obscure the scale of the casualties and minimize the documentation of violence during the peak of the demonstrations.

His death occurred during the January Massacre, a nationwide crackdown on anti-establishment protests that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people across Iran.

Witnessing the shooting from just a few meters away, Parham's father immediately retrieved his son’s body.

To prevent security forces from seizing the remains — a frequent occurrence during the crackdown — the father carried the teenager in his arms for hundreds of meters through the protest zone to reach his vehicle, eventually transporting him directly to the family home.

Security forces demand 'rioter' narrative for burial

The day after the killing, security officials refused to grant burial permits unless the family agreed to their terms.

According to sources familiar with the matter, officials coerced the father into signing a written commitment saying his son had been killed by "rioters" rather than state forces.

Authorities threatened to withhold the body indefinitely if the family did not comply with the official narrative.

Conscience over safety

Family and friends remember Parham as a kind and soft-spoken teenager who was deeply devoted to his parents.

His family said that on the night of the protest, his father had tried to convince him to stay home, promising to buy him a PlayStation 5 if he avoided the streets.

In an exchange that has since defined his legacy, Parham replied: "If I don't go, what am I supposed to do with my conscience?"

The tracker said on Tuesday crude shipments remain trapped inside the blockade zone despite some refined fuel cargoes escaping sanctions pressure.

“To our best knowledge, Iran hasn't successfully exported any crude oil by sea over the past 28 days,” the monitoring firm said on X, adding that its definition of an export is a tanker successfully crossing the US Navy blockade line without returning with the cargo.

The group said some refined petroleum products had still managed to leave Iran because the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had not sanctioned the tankers involved.

It also reported that multiple empty and loaded tankers remain clustered near the blockade perimeter and in waters not far from Pakistan.

The United States began enforcing a naval blockade on Iranian ports and oil exports on April 13 as part of its broader pressure campaign against Tehran during the ongoing conflict.

Washington has said the measures are aimed at restricting Iran’s oil revenues and limiting its ability to finance military operations and regional armed groups.

Kharg oil spill

Tanker Trackers said Kharg Island, the hub for 90% of Iran's oil exports, has not loaded any tankers since May 6 as a result of an oil leak which Tehran denied taking place.

Satellite images last week showed the suspected oil spill spreading across dozens of square kilometers of water near Kharg Island.

The likely spill, visible as a gray-and-white slick, appeared west of the five-mile-long island in images taken by Copernicus Sentinel satellites between May 6 and May 8 seen by Reuters.

Leon Moreland, a researcher at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, said the slick looked visually consistent with oil and estimated it covered about 45 square kilometers.

Louis Goddard, co-founder of climate and commodities consultancy Data Desk, also said the images appeared to show an oil slick, potentially the largest since the US-Israel war against Iran began in late February.

The cause and origin of the suspected spill remain unclear, Moreland said, adding that May 8 images showed no sign of further active spills.