The United States has issued a new round of Iran-related sanctions targeting 10 individuals and 27 entities, according to a post on the US Treasury Department website on Friday.
The sanctioned entities have ties to the "Shadow Banking Network," which is involved in money laundering on behalf of Iran, according to a State Department press release.
The network has laundered billions of dollars through Iranian exchange houses and foreign front companies, according to the release.
The Zarringhalam brothers and their associates used front companies based in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong to help certain Iranians generate revenue from the sale of petroleum and other commodities used to build nuclear weapons.
At the same time, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Department updated an advisory to provide information on forms of illegal financing, as well as red flags associated with Iranian oil smuggling, shadow banking, and procurement of weapons and dual-use components.
The sanctions, which also target some entities in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, come as US President Donald Trump's administration is working to get a new nuclear deal with Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that Iran will respond to the American proposal in the coming days.
This follows a Wall Street Journal report alleging that Iran ordered thousands of tons of ballistic missile ingredients from China to rebuild its nuclear and military capabilities.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson denied knowledge of the deal in a statement, asserting that China has “always exercised strict control over dual-use items in accordance with China’s export control laws and regulations and its international obligations.”
The shipments, which are expected to reach Iran in the coming months, include ammonium perchlorate, a key component in the solid propellant used for ballistic missiles. These materials could potentially fuel hundreds of missiles, according to the WSJ.
Some of the materials are expected to be sent to Iranian proxies, including Yemen's Houthis, in its bid to rebuild its network, which has faced numerous setbacks, including during Israel's war with Hamas, during which the IDF also significantly weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon and killed many of the Iranian regime's key leaders, including Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, former Hezbollah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, as well as multiple Hamas leaders.
Earlier this year, Iranian ships docked in China to load over 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate, a precursor for ammonium perchlorate.
Previous sanctions by the Treasury Department
The Treasury Department previously sanctioned six individuals and six entities from both Iran and China on April 29 for their involvement in procuring ballistic missile propellant ingredients. Two weeks later, the Treasury expanded these sanctions to include additional Chinese and Hong Kong entities.
The Treasury Department also added sodium perchlorate to the list of materials it believes are being used in Iran’s military, nuclear, or ballistic missile programs.
On Wednesday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran will not abandon its uranium enrichment, rejecting a key US demand aimed at resolving a decades-long nuclear dispute, which he said was against the Islamic Republic’s interests.
After five rounds of talks, several hard-to-bridge issues remain, including Iran's insistence on maintaining uranium enrichment on its soil and Tehran's refusal to ship abroad its entire existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium- possible raw material for nuclear bombs.