The United States Treasury Department announced U. S. and UAE sanctions Thursday of a currency exchange network abused to fund IRGC ‘malign activities.’
May 10 (UPI) — The U. S. Treasury Department announced joint sanctions Thursday with the United Arab Emirates on entities accused of funding « malign activities » carried out by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Treasury imposed the sanctions on nine Iranians and companies it said were operating a corrupt currency exchange network in the United Arab Emirates with complicity from Iran’s Central Bank .
The large currency network in Iran and UAE has « procured and transferred millions in U. S. dollar-denominated bulk cash to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to fund its malign activities and regional proxy groups, » the U. S. Department of Treasury said in a news release.
« The Iranian regime and its Central Bank have abused access to entities in the UAE to acquire U. S. dollars to fund the IRGC-QF’s ‘malign activities,’ including to fund and arm its regional proxy groups, by concealing the purpose for which the U. S. dollars were acquired, » Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. « The Treasury Department thanks the UAE for its close collaboration on this matter. »
Mnuchin added: « Countries around the world must be vigilant against Iran’s efforts to exploit their financial institutions to exchange currency and fund the nefarious actors of the IRGC-QF and the world’s largest state sponsor of terror. »
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump announced the U. S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which he called « defective at its core. » Trump added that the United States would institute « the highest level of economic sanctions » on Iran.
The deal — called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and agreed upon with China, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and the European Union — was reached under the Obama administration, but Trump has described the deal, which lifted sanctions on Iran in return for limits on its nuclear program, as « terrible » and has said it contains « disastrous flaws. »
