The Trump administration has announced new sanctions against more than a dozen Iranian individuals and entities that it alleges are the “architects” of the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters.
The Treasury department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also took action against the shadow banking networks that allow Iran’s elite to steal and launder revenue generated by the country’s natural resources.
According to the statement from the US Treasury department, OFAC designated 18 individuals and entities who play critical roles in laundering the proceeds of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical sales to foreign markets as part of the clandestine “shadow banking” networks of sanctioned Iranian financial institutions Bank Melli and Shahr Bank.
“Rather than using these revenues to to benefit the Iranian people, who face economic calamity amid crippling inflation and massive deficits caused by the regime’s economic mismanagement, these funds are instead used to finance the regime’s repression of the Iranian people and its support for terrorist groups abroad.”
US Treasury Department
Among the Iranian security officials sanctioned today is Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security (SCNS). The statement noted that Larijani was one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people.
It asserted that the officials sanctioned today and their organizations bear responsibility for the thousands of deaths and injuries of their fellow citizens as protests erupted in each of Iran’s provinces.
Also, the statement emphasised that the move to impose sanctions is in furtherance of the President’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 (NSPM-2), which has impacted the Iranian regime’s ability to sell its petroleum to support its “destabilizing behavior and recoup those funds amidst Treasury’s continued campaign of maximum economic pressure against Iran’s shadow banking, money laundering, and sanctions evasion networks.” It added that in 2025, OFAC sanctioned more than 875 persons, vessels, and aircraft as part of this campaign.
Bessent Asserts US Support For People Of Iran
US Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent said in the Treasury statement that the United States stands firmly behind the Iranian people in their call for freedom and justice.
“At the direction of President Trump, the Treasury Department is sanctioning key Iranian leaders involved in the brutal crackdown against the Iranian people. Treasury will use every tool to target those behind the regime’s tyrannical oppression of human rights.”
Scott Bessent
Additionally, Bessent said in a video announcing the measures that Iran’s leaders have brutally responded to peaceful demonstrations with violence, from mass shootings in the street to attacks on wounded victims and hospitals.
He said the sanctions, from the treasury department Office of Foreign Assets Control, target 18 individuals and entities that the regime “uses to evade sanctions on Iranian oil and divert proceeds from its energy sales away from the rightful owners, the Iranian people.”
As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated or blocked persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC.
In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. Unless authorized by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all transactions by US persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of blocked persons.
Violations of US sanctions may result in the imposition of civil or criminal penalties on US and foreign persons. OFAC may impose civil penalties for sanctions violations on a strict liability basis.
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