Latest: Treasury’s companion press release, read in full after the first update, puts the package at 26 Treasury designations under Executive Order 13902, plus a separate State Department designation of Cuba’s Banco Internacional de Comercio. The two offshore banks are Jazireh International Bank Company, affiliated with Bank Mellat, and Chabahar International Bank Overseas Company, affiliated with Bank Shahr, both approved by Iran’s central bank to operate in foreign currency in free trade zones. The release also names an Iranian oil trustee network, the Farab Sorough Qeshm shadow banking network and a set of exchange houses said to have moved hundreds of millions of dollars. Secretary Scott Bessent said the noose is tightening around Iran’s economy and that Treasury would not relent until the regime’s financial lifelines are severed.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added a group of Iran linked individuals and companies to its sanctions list on Thursday, including money exchange firms, two offshore banking companies and the Iraq based International Development Bank for Investment and Finance, and issued a general license authorizing the wind down of transactions involving that bank. OFAC also designated Cuba’s state owned Banco Internacional de Comercio. In the same package, OFAC issued Russia related general licenses authorizing certain transactions involving Lukoil retail service stations located outside Russia and certain Lukoil entities in Bulgaria.