By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) – The United States on Friday issued new Iran-related sanctions targeting a key financier for Iran’s new leader Mojtaba Khamenei and 13 other individuals and entities, following Tehran’s resumed attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the Treasury Department said.
The sanctions took aim at Ali Ansari, an Iranian banker and businessman based in Dubai who had previously been sanctioned by Britain for his role in financially supporting the activities of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and other entities, Treasury said.
Treasury said Ansari had diverted publicly funded wealth into an extensive overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial holdings to enrich himself, government elites, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also targeted key Iranian exchange houses and foreign “front companies” that it said moved billions of dollars annually on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks, using layers of shell companies to obscure the government’s illicit activity.
The sanctions were announced on a day of relative calm after a week of renewed conflict, when three Qatari and Saudi commercial tankers came under Iranian fire, prompting the U.S. to hit Iranian sites, and Iran to respond with strikes on U.S. military sites in Gulf states.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday the ceasefire agreed with Iran was over, but Washington had agreed to continue talks at Iran’s request.
In a statement announcing the fresh sanctions, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department would “continue using every tool at its disposal” to isolate Khamenei and other top Iranian officials from the global financial system.
Iran has said it is ready for “all-out defense” if the U.S. violates the memorandum of understanding agreed last month. Its top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, vowed in a post on Telegram that the war would never end with Tehran’s surrender.
Brett Erickson, managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the new sanctions sent a clear message to Tehran. “Washington is no longer trying to salvage the existing framework, it’s preparing to replace it entirely,” he said.
Treasury said Ansari was previously the owner and director of the U.S.-sanctioned and now-bankrupt and defunct Ayandeh Bank, which was shuttered under Iranian government orders in mid-October 2025.
It said Ansari used numerous shell companies and bank accounts across multiple jurisdictions to accumulate millions of dollars’ worth of holdings under the Saint Kitts and Nevis-based Smart Global Limited, a holding company established in 2011 that invested in real estate and commercial properties in Europe, the Gulf and other regions.
“Although held in Ansari’s name, many of these financial interests are ultimately held for the financial benefit of Mojtaba Khamenei, his family, and other Iranian elites in the regime and the IRGC who have protected Ansari from facing punishment despite his blatant corruption and the significant damage he has caused to the Iranian economy and people,” Treasury said.
OFAC also announced measures against Iranian nationals involved with several of the exchange houses, as well as Hong Kong-based CDM Trading Limited, which it said was conducting financial transactions by those exchange houses, and Naba Alzaki Raw Materials Trading LLC, which is based in the United Arab Emirates.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones; Writing by Christian Martinez; Editing by Katharine Jackson and Nia Williams)
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