"Today, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 39 entities constituting a significant “shadow banking” network, one of several multi-jurisdictional illicit finance systems which grant sanctioned Iranian entities, such as Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co. (PGPICC) and Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (Triliance), access to the international financial system and obfuscate their trade with foreign customers. Iranian exchange houses create front companies abroad to enable trade on behalf of their Iranian clients, with foreign currency transactions maintained via internal ledgers. PGPICC is the marketing arm of sanctioned Iranian petrochemical conglomerate Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), which generates the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars annually for the Iranian regime(government)," a statement appeared on the US Department of the Treasury said on Thursday.
“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,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “Today’s action demonstrates the United States’ commitment to enforcing our sanctions and our ability to disrupt Iran’s foreign financial networks, which it uses to launder funds.”
The statement further said, "Today’s action was taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13846 and follows OFAC’s February 9, 2023 designation of 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 on behalf of Triliance."
The Treasury added, "PGPICC was designated pursuant to E.O. 13382, a WMD authority, on July 7, 2019, for being owned or controlled by PGPIC, which itself was designated pursuant to E.O. 13382 for having provided financial support to Khatam al-Anbiya, the engineering conglomerate of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)."
"Triliance was designated pursuant to E.O. 13846 on January 23, 2020, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), by facilitating the sale of Iranian petroleum products from NIOC," the US Department of Treasury concluded.
The new round of US sanctions comes despite Washington's attempts to blame Iran for the failure in reviving the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, from which the previous US regime under Donald Trump withdrew in May 2018.
The European participants to JCPOA have remained indifferent to the violation of the deal by Washington.
MNA