A group of companies, run by Salim Ahmed Said (a man with Iraqi and British nationality), has been secretly buying and selling large amounts of Iranian oil since at least 2020. These companies made the oil look like it came from Iraq by mixing it with real Iraqi oil. This trick helped them avoid international bans and sell it to other countries.
The U.S. government said it will keep putting pressure on Iran by cutting off its sources of money. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said they want to stop Iran from using this money to cause problems in the region.
The U.S. has already placed many sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program and for supporting certain groups in the Middle East.
Last year, Reuters reported that a fuel-smuggling operation in Iraq was earning Iran and its allies at least $1 billion a year since 2022.
The U.S. announced these new sanctions shortly after it launched airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites on June 22. One of the sites was Fordow, Iran’s most protected nuclear facility. The Pentagon now says these attacks may have set back Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years.
Talks between the U.S. and Iran about the nuclear issue are expected to take place in Oslo next week, according to Axios.
The U.S. Treasury said Said’s companies and ships mixed Iranian and Iraqi oil, then used fake documents to sell it as Iraqi oil, mainly through Iraq or the UAE. This helped them hide the fact that the oil was from Iran.
Said controls a UAE-based company called VS Tankers. This company, which used to be called Al-Iraqia Shipping Services & Oil Trading (AISSOT), has been involved in smuggling oil to help the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The U.S. considers the IRGC a terrorist group.
The new sanctions freeze any U.S.-based assets of those involved and ban Americans from doing business with them.
VS Tankers and Iran’s mission in New York have not responded to these claims yet.
The U.S. also punished several ships that secretly carried Iranian oil. This increases pressure on Iran’s “shadow fleet,” which is used to avoid oil sanctions.
Lastly, the U.S. sanctioned some senior officials and an organization linked to Hezbollah’s financial arm, Al-Qard Al-Hassan. These people handled millions of dollars in secret transactions that helped Hezbollah.
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