News
OFAC to Target Financial Institutions Acting as Iran Surrogates: Director
By Brian Orsak
printThe U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions arm is gearing up to blacklist financial institutions secretly acting on behalf of Iran in an effort to bypass economic prohibitions, the agency's director said Wednesday. "Iran is looking to purchase small, third-country banks, and we've been very active in trying to combat that, and it is turning to bank substitutes or surrogates, like trading companies and exchange houses, to be able to move large sums of money that an ordinary company would move through a bank," said Adam Szubin, the director of the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). American officials believe that...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Subscribe
Learn More
Related News
For the first time, U.S. officials have blacklisted a foreign financial institution using a July 2012 executive order that prohibits significant transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
Lawmakers should press ahead with Iran sanctions bills despite pressure to put off new restrictions while American and Iranian officials hold nuclear talks, according to David Ibsen, executive director of United Against Nuclear Iran.
The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved legislation that would restrict Iran's access to its overseas assets and expand measures targeting profits derived from the country's commercial trade.
U.S. lawmakers will seek to advance a bill next week that would impose sanctions against companies that trade with Iran unless they agree to reduce their ties to the country within 180 days.
A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday that would bar foreign financial institutions that help Iran's central bank circumvent currency restrictions from holding correspondent accounts in the United States.
The government of Iran and banks under its influence are increasingly using investments in foreign financial institutions as a means to circumvent sanctions, including restrictions on interbank messages, say sources.
U.S. House lawmakers are working to introduce a new round of comprehensive sanctions against Iran by March in an effort to curtail the country's alleged nuclear weapons program, say sources.
The U.S. Treasury Department is investigating Middle Eastern currency exchange houses and trading companies purportedly helping Iranians evade sanctions, officials said Thursday.
New U.S. Treasury Department banking restrictions designed to hamstring Iran's nuclear program will curtail personal remittances and the ability to receive payments for licensed exports to the country, say analysts.