Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday announced sanctions targeting Ali Ansari, whom U.S. officials described as a Dubai-based financial operator for Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, along with three Iranian currency exchanges and alleged front companies in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates said to connect Tehran’s banks to the global financial system.
The new measures came after two consecutive nights of renewed U.S. airstrikes on Iran, as well as a third strike carried out by an unidentified country. The actions followed Iranian attacks on Monday and Tuesday against three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The so-called Supreme Leader is hiding in seclusion while his regime crumbles. Treasury will continue using every tool at its disposal to isolate him and other regime elites from the global financial system,” Bessent said. “We will preserve these assets for the Iranian people.”
In its announcement, the Treasury Department said the sanctions are part of Operation Economic Fury, a campaign aimed at supporting President Trump’s military effort to pressure Iran into giving up its nuclear program. The department accused Ansari of overseeing “a sprawling global network of assets benefitting Iran’s leader.”
According to Treasury, “Ansari has effectively institutionalized large-scale embezzlement within the Iranian regime, diverting publicly funded wealth into an extensive overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial holdings.”
Ansari was previously the owner of Ayandeh Bank, a Tehran-based institution already under U.S. sanctions. The bank collapsed last year after accumulating billions of dollars in losses, before Mojtaba — long described as the influential “power behind the robes” — succeeded his aging father, who was later assassinated, as supreme leader.
Treasury alleged that the bank “racked up billions in debt as it issued loans backed by the Central Bank of Iran to Ansari’s own companies and commercial ventures in Iran… using his publicly funded wealth to simultaneously expand an overseas business empire on behalf of Mojtaba Khamenei.”
Officials also said Ansari used a company registered in Saint Kitts and Nevis to acquire property and investments beginning in 2011 across Cyprus, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, the UAE and the United Kingdom.
“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,” the department said.
In a further attempt to pinch off Iran’s financial links, the Treasury announced that institutions that exchange currency and two international partner organizations would face sanctions — effectively disconnecting them from the US-governed global banking system and freezing any assets within reach.
“These exchange houses move and maintain the equivalent of billions of dollars annually on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks, which transact through vast layers of cover and shell companies that conceal the sanctioned Iranian commercial parties ultimately behind these transactions,” the department said.
“Hong Kong-based CDM Trading Limited is a front company which has been used to conduct financial transactions by multiple Iranian exchange houses, to include Mohsen Khandan and Partners General Partnership Company. Similarly, Naba Alzaki Raw Materials Trading LLC is a UAE-based front company which has been used by Mohsen Khandan and Partners General Partnership Company as part of Iran’s rahbar network.”
All five of the businesses were hit with sanctions.
