United States Imposes Sanctions on 10 Iranian Companies

Washington, July 29 (KUNA) -- The U.S. Department of Treasury announced on Wednesday the imposition of sanctions on two Iranian companies for managing coercive insurance schemes to extort international shipping traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, along with eight other companies within Iran’s “shadow fleet” for oil transport. In a statement, the Treasury said that the sanctions imposed by its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targeted “an illicit maritime insurance scheme and Iran’s parallel fleet apparatus.” The statement noted that two of the companies sanctioned by OFAC “play a central role in a coercive scheme backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which forces commercial vessels to purchase mandatory maritime insurance to transit the strait.” It further explained that through these two companies, Iran “sells IRGC-approved insurance documents specifically designed to extract revenues under the guise of maritime services.” The statement added that the other sanctioned companies “transported Iranian crude oil and illegal petrochemical products via their vessels and are part of Iran’s parallel fleet, or ‘shadow fleet,’ which the regime relies on to circumvent sanctions.” For his part, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement that “with Iran’s economy in free fall and inflation at high levels, the regime is desperately seeking liquidity.” Bessent stressed that the United States “will not allow Iran to hold global trade hostage or use the international shipping sector to fund the IRGC’s terrorist, aggressive, and repressive activities.” (End) R.S.R. / S.A.M.