US, UAE crack down on Iran Revolutionary Guard’s finances
WASHINGTON: The US has sanctioned a currency exchange network that was allegedly used by Iran to finance its “malign activities and regional proxy groups”.
This was the first of a series of curbs expected to follow President Donald Trump’s decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal this week.
The new sanctions were announced jointly with the UAE and target a financing network spread across Iran and the Emirates, which the US treasury said was used to collect and procure dollars for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps- Quds Force (IRGC-QF), which Washington accuses of supporting terrorism and destabilisation activities in the region.
In all three companies and six Iranians were named.
The treasury also accuses the central bank of handing over large amounts of oil revenue to the IRGC which, through a front company, sent them through couriers to be exchanged into dollars in the UAE through two Iranian firms.
The US says the IRGC then passed on this money to Iran’s regional proxies.
“The Iranian regime and its central bank have abused access to entities in the UAE to acquire US dollars to fund the IRGC-QF’S malign activities, including to fund and arm its regional proxy groups, by concealing the purpose for which the US dollars were acquired,” treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
The move follows Trump’s announcement that he was pulling the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, and that all the sanctions in effect till the signing of the accord in 2015 will be re-imposed.