Washington Imposes Sanctions on 10 Iranian Firms for Their Role in Ship Extortion and 'Shadow Fleet'

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Wednesday the imposition of sanctions on two Iranian companies for their role in managing a coercive insurance scheme designed to extort international shipping traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, along with eight other companies within Iran’s “shadow fleet” for oil transportation.

In a statement, the Treasury said that sanctions imposed by its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) targeted “an illicit maritime insurance scheme, as well as 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 clarified that through these two companies, Iran “is selling IRGC-approved insurance documents specifically designed to extract revenues under the guise of maritime services.”

The statement added that the other sanctioned companies “transported illegal Iranian crude oil and 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 stated in a quote included in the announcement that “with Iran’s economy in free fall and inflation reaching high levels, the regime is desperately seeking liquidity.”

Bessent emphasized that his country “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.”