{"id":4671,"date":"2025-09-17T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T11:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/us-treasury-sanctions-individuals-entities-linked-to-irans-shadow-banking-system\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T07:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T07:58:11","slug":"us-treasury-sanctions-individuals-entities-linked-to-irans-shadow-banking-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/us-treasury-sanctions-individuals-entities-linked-to-irans-shadow-banking-system\/","title":{"rendered":"US Treasury sanctions individuals, entities linked to Iran\u2019s \u2018shadow banking\u2019 system"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Sean Rayment<\/em><\/p>\n

Two Iranian financiers and more than a dozen individuals and firms across Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates have been sanctioned by the US for allegedly coordinating $100 million worth of cryptocurrency transfers from the sale of Iranian oil, benefiting Iran\u2019s government and military.<\/p>\n

The US Treasury Department alleges that Iranian nationals\u00a0Alireza Derakhshan\u00a0and\u00a0Arash Estaki Alivand\u00a0facilitated the purchase of over $100 million in cryptocurrency tied to oil sales on behalf of the Iranian government.<\/p>\n

According to the Treasury, both men then used a network of front companies across several countries to transfer the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

So-called\u00a0shadow banking<\/em>\u00a0networks like these attempt to evade sanctions by laundering money through overseas front companies and cryptocurrency channels.<\/p>\n

Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence\u00a0John K. Hurley\u00a0said in a statement: \u201cIranian entities rely on shadow banking networks to evade sanctions and move millions through the international financial system.<\/p>\n

Under President Trump\u2019s leadership, we will continue to disrupt these key financial streams that fund Iran\u2019s weapons programs and malign activities in the Middle East and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sanctions were authorised under an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in February, the\u00a0National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, which calls for the US to \u201cdrive Iran\u2019s export of oil to zero\u201d and states that Iran \u201ccan never be allowed to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The measures block the individuals and firms from accessing any property or financial assets held in the United States and prohibit American companies and citizens from conducting business with them.<\/p>\n

Iran and other sanctioned nations have increasingly turned to cryptocurrency to bypass restrictions. Blockchain analytics firm\u00a0Chainalysis\u00a0reported that sanctioned jurisdictions and entities such as Iran received\u00a0$15.8 billion in cryptocurrency in 2024, representing about\u00a039 per cent of all illicit crypto transactions\u00a0that year.<\/p>\n

The latest US sanctions also follow a move by\u00a0France, Britain, and Germany, which triggered a\u00a0snapback mechanism<\/em>reimposing all United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, accusing Tehran of wilfully breaching the 2015 nuclear deal that had lifted such measures.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the US and Iran attempted to negotiate a new nuclear deal, but those talks have stalled since the\u00a012-day Israeli bombardment of Iran\u2019s nuclear and military sites\u00a0and the subsequent\u00a0US airstrikes on June 22.<\/p>\n

The full Treasury statement can be read here:\u00a0https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/news\/press-releases\/sb0248<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sean Rayment Two Iranian financiers and more than a dozen individuals and firms across Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates have been sanctioned by the US for allegedly coordinating $100 million worth of cryptocurrency transfers from the sale of Iranian oil, benefiting Iran\u2019s government and military. The US Treasury Department alleges that Iranian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4673,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions\/4673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}