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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent imposed sanctions Friday on Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s alleged Dubai-based moneyman Ali Ansari, three Iranian currency exchanges and alleged front companies in Hong Kong and the UAE that link Tehran’s banks to the global economic system.
Bessent announced the latest financial squeeze following two nights of resumed US airstrikes on Iran and a third conducted by an unknown country — prompted by Iranian attacks Monday and Tuesday on three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The so-called Supreme Leader is hiding in seclusion while his regime crumbles. Treasury will continue using every tool at its disposal to isolate him and other regime elites from the global financial system,” Bessent said. “We will preserve these assets for the Iranian people.”
A statement from the Treasury Department, which has led a so-called Operation Economic Fury to support President Trump’s military effort to force Iran to relinquish its nuclear program, says Ansari “oversees a sprawling global network of assets benefitting Iran’s leader.”
“Ansari has effectively institutionalized large‑scale embezzlement within the Iranian regime, diverting publicly funded wealth into an extensive overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial holdings,” the department said.
He previously owned the US-sanctioned and Tehran-based Ayandeh Bank, which went bust last year after racking up billions in losses — before Mojtaba, then known as the influential “power behind the robes,” succeeded his aging and ultimately assassinated father as supreme leader.
The bank “racked up billions in debt as it issued loans backed by the Central Bank of Iran to Ansari’s own companies and commercial ventures in Iran… using his publicly funded wealth to simultaneously expand an overseas business empire on behalf of Mojtaba Khamenei,” the Treasury Department said.
Through a company registered in Saint Kitts and Nevis, the banker has since 2011 allegedly scooped up property and investments in Cyprus, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, the UAE and the UK.
“Although held in Ansari’s name, many of these financial interests are ultimately held for the financial benefit of Mojtaba Khamenei, his family, and other Iranian elites,” the department said.
In a further attempt to pinch off Iran’s financial links, the Treasury announced that institutions that exchange currency and two international partner organizations would face sanctions — effectively disconnecting them from the US-governed global banking system and freezing any assets within reach.
“These exchange houses move and maintain the equivalent of billions of dollars annually on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks, which transact through vast layers of cover and shell companies that conceal the sanctioned Iranian commercial parties ultimately behind these transactions,” the department said.
“Hong Kong-based CDM Trading Limited is a front company which has been used to conduct financial transactions by multiple Iranian exchange houses, to include Mohsen Khandan and Partners General Partnership Company. Similarly, Naba Alzaki Raw Materials Trading LLC is a UAE-based front company which has been used by Mohsen Khandan and Partners General Partnership Company as part of Iran’s rahbar network.”
All five of the businesses were hit with sanctions.
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