Article By Iranintl
The United States on Monday imposed new Iran-related sanctions on Russia’s VTB Bank on Monday, accusing the already heavily sanctioned lender of helping Tehran evade restrictions through banking relationships and payment arrangements.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated VTB under Executive Order 13902 for operating in Iran’s financial sector, expanding Operation Economic Outcast to one of Russia’s largest banks. The action follows measures targeting banking channels in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Treasury said VTB established correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian financial institutions over the past three years, took steps to move billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets and created a settlement system using rial- and ruble-denominated accounts to increase trade between Russia and Iran.
VTB has also had a presence in Tehran since 2023, when it became the first Russian bank to open a representative office in Iran. The bank stressed at the time that the Tehran operation was a representative office rather than a full branch. Treasury said VTB began taking steps in January 2025 to expand its presence in the Iranian capital.
“Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
“Treasury will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and isolate Iran’s enablers,” he added.
VTB sanctioned again
Monday’s action does not mark the first time Washington has sanctioned VTB.
The bank was subjected to US sectoral restrictions in 2014 following Russia’s actions in Ukraine and was fully blocked by OFAC in February 2022 under Executive Order 14024 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Treasury also designated VTB in January 2025 under Executive Order 13662. The new action adds an Iran-specific sanctions authority targeting its activities in Iran’s financial sector.
Treasury said the Iran designation creates additional sanctions exposure for foreign financial institutions conducting certain transactions with VTB and urged institutions that continue dealing with the Russian lender to sever those relationships.
The move was foreshadowed by Bessent on September 10, when he said Washington would sanction an unidentified “large bank” on Monday as it continued ratcheting up pressure on Iran.
“We are just going to continue with this process until everyone stops dealing with this regime,” Bessent told Real America’s Voice.
“We will make it so unprofitable that if you want to risk an extinction-level event for your company or for your person, your personal finances, then have at it. But we are coming for you,” he said.
Bessent had earlier warned financial institutions on X after Washington sanctioned Turkey’s Golden Global Bank on September 4.
“Financial institutions continue to find out the hard way that we are serious about Operation Economic Outcast,” he wrote, adding: “We know who you are, we know where you are.”
Economic D-Day
Bessent launched Operation Economic Outcast on August 24, describing it as an economic “D-Day” aimed at severing the remaining financial lifelines sustaining Iran.
The initiative goes beyond imposing restrictions on Iranian entities themselves by threatening foreign companies and financial institutions with loss of access to the US market and financial system if they continue doing business with Tehran.
The VTB action follows two significant moves against foreign banking channels used by Iran.
On September 4, Treasury sanctioned Turkey’s Golden Global Bank and two subsidiaries, alleging the lender facilitated tens of millions of dollars in transactions for the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and helped move Iranian oil revenue from China into Turkey, where money exchangers could convert funds into cash and gold. Golden Global denied the allegations.
On August 28, US authorities took a different approach against the UAE operations of Egypt’s Banque Misr. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed cutting the branches off from US correspondent banking after identifying them as a “primary money laundering concern.”
The measure was not an OFAC asset-freezing sanction and applied to Banque Misr’s UAE operations rather than the Egyptian parent bank more broadly.
FinCEN estimated that Banque Misr UAE processed approximately $1.8 billion between January 2024 and June 2026 for 103 companies potentially connected to Iranian shadow-banking networks.
Iran’s overseas banking network
An Iran International investigation published September 2, however, found that Iran’s overseas banking network extended considerably beyond the institutions Washington had targeted.
Based on leaked Bank Parsian correspondence and transaction records spanning November 2022 to May 2023, the investigation identified 15 banks in the UAE and China through which Iranian financial institutions conducted international transactions. Thirteen had faced no publicly recorded US penalties or enforcement action over their involvement at the time of publication.
The records included 33 payment instructions worth roughly $36 million. One showed Bank Parsian directing Bank Shahr to transfer 3.06 million UAE dirhams purchased from Iran’s central bank from a trustee account to an account at Banque Misr.
Iran International found no evidence that the UAE and Chinese banks knowingly helped Iran circumvent US sanctions.
Be the first to comment