The United States on Friday imposed a fresh round of Iran-related sanctions, targeting individuals and entities it accused of financing Iran's leadership and helping sanctioned banks move billions of dollars through international financial networks.
The US Treasury Department said the measures were introduced after Iran resumed attacks on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, escalating tensions in the Gulf.
Among those sanctioned was Dubai-based Iranian banker and businessman Ali Ansari, whom the Treasury described as a "key financier" for Iran's new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
The Treasury said Ansari had diverted publicly funded wealth into an extensive overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial holdings to enrich himself, members of Iran's ruling elite and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also imposed sanctions on several Iranian exchange houses that it said handled billions of dollars in transactions annually on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks.
According to the department, the exchange houses used networks of shell companies to conceal what it described as Iran's illicit financial activities and to help the government evade international sanctions.
The sanctions were announced after a week of heightened tensions in the Gulf, during which three Qatari and Saudi commercial tankers came under Iranian fire, prompting US strikes on Iranian sites and retaliatory Iranian attacks on US military facilities in Gulf states.
