Ovunc Kutlu
09 March 2023•Update: 10 March 2023
ISTANBUL
The US government announced Thursday that it targeted a total of 39 entities amid sanctions evasion for Iran, in addition to five companies and one individual, for supporting Tehran's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) efforts.
The Treasury Department said the entities constituted a "shadow banking" network, which grant sanctioned Iranian entities access to the international financial system and obscure their trade with foreign customers.
The agency argued that Iranian exchange houses create front companies abroad to enable trade on behalf of their Iranian clients, as foreign currency transactions maintained via internal ledgers.
"Iran cultivates complex sanctions evasion networks where foreign buyers, exchange houses, and dozens of front companies cooperatively help sanctioned Iranian companies to continue to trade," Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.
The move followed a Feb. 9 decision when the US sanctioned nine companies in Iran, Singapore, and Malaysia for their role in the production, sale, and shipment of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Iranian petrochemicals and petroleum to buyers in Asia, according to the statement.
The Treasury Department also announced in a separate statement that it sanctioned a China-based network of five companies and one individual for supporting Tehran's UAV procurement efforts.
The agency argued that the network is responsible for the sale and shipment of thousands of aerospace components, including UAV-related ones, to Iran's Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA), which it said has been involved in the production of a certain UAV model that was used to attack oil tankers and has been exported to Russia.
"Iran is directly implicated in the Ukrainian civilian casualties that result from Russia’s use of Iranian UAVs in Ukraine," Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said in the statement. "The United States will continue to target global Iranian procurement networks that supply Russia with deadly UAVs for use in its illegal war in Ukraine."
The US has issued six rounds of designations of individuals and entities involved in the production and transfer of Iranian UAVs since September last year, according to the Treasury.
