Banks backed by Iranian military STILL open in UK
IRAN’S state-backed banks should be sanctioned by the UK so they cannot be used to funnel money to terror groups, according to a former Conservative party leader.
Iain Duncan Smith said it was ‘unfathomable’ that two major Iranian lenders, Melli Bank and Bank Saderat, still had branches in London despite allegations from US security officials that they have been used to give cash to terrorists.
He told The Mail on Sunday that as both banks are owned by the Iranian government, they are by extension linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The IRGC is a branch of the country’s armed forces whose members support Iran’s overseas allies, including terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
The US has banned the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. But the UK has not yet done so, despite repeated pleas by MPs and peers in Parliament.
Duncan Smith said: ‘Our policy is quite ridiculous. You have Iranian banks operating in the UK – one of the world’s premier financial centres – with impunity, alongside the IRGC.’
Last month he wrote to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary James Cleverly asking what steps have been taken to ‘investigate Iranian financial institutions based in the UK’, including Saderat and Melli.
Melli Bank’s UK base is on Kensington High Street, in one of London’s most upmarket neighbourhoods. Bank Saderat’s offices sit in the City just behind the Bank of England. The presence of Iranian banks in the UK follows allegations in February that some of Britain’s biggest financial institutions had been used by the Islamic theocracy in a vast plot to evade US sanctions.
Lloyds, HSBC, and Standard Chartered are among those alleged to have provided banking services for front companies linked to the Iranian regime.
Duncan Smith and other MPs are pushing for the UK to align itself more closely with the US and sanction both banks.
Veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge, an anti-corruption campaigner, said earlier this month it was ‘completely barmy’ that Iran’s banks and the IRGC were allowed to operate in Britain.
A Foreign Office spokesman said rules had recently been introduced ‘which gives us new and enhanced sanctions powers to counter Iran’s hostile and destabilising activities.’