The United States on Tuesday expanded its sanctions targeting Iran’s oil and financial sectors, placing heavy restrictions on more than 50 individuals, entities, and vessels connected to the massive shipping network of petroleum magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani.
According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the newly designated entities allegedly enabled Iranian authorities to continue exporting oil globally and evade existing international economic restrictions.
The expanded designations represent the U.S. government’s latest effort to choke off the financial lifelines supporting Tehran. Officials noted that the Shamkhani network has evolved far beyond oil transit into a sprawling international network involving global containerized shipping and multi-commodity trading.
”The Iranian regime survives on deception, and the Shamkhani network is one of its most profitable engines,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “Treasury is shutting down the financial infrastructure that allows the regime to continue its threats to U.S. national security and global shipping.”
In tandem with the maritime designations, the Treasury Department announced it has frozen $130 million held in digital wallets linked directly to Iran’s central bank, taking direct aim at the regime’s growing reliance on cryptocurrency to bypass traditional banking blocks.
The crackdown blocks all U.S.-based assets of those designated and prohibits American citizens and entities from engaging in business transactions with them. Key details regarding the scope of the operations include:
The targeted shell companies, logistics firms, and financial intermediaries span across multiple jurisdictions, including the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, India, Hong Kong, and the Marshall Islands.
Tuesday’s package adds more than 50 assets to the blacklist. Cumulatively, the U.S. has now sanctioned more than 200 individuals, entities, and vessels operating under the Shamkhani umbrella since July 2025.
Concurrently, OFAC issued a temporary general license allowing limited safety, environmental transactions, and the offloading of specific cargo to ensure safety at sea during the wind-down period.
The actions come amid heightened military and economic friction in the Middle East. The Treasury Department explicitly linked the updated sanctions to escalating regional skirmishes, stating the measure is a response to renewed, destabilizing maritime actions.
Following a series of attacks in the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway, a critical choke point for global energy transit, the U.S. military recently conducted consecutive days of airstrikes and reimposed a naval blockade targeting Iranian ports.
Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani is the son of the prominent security official Ali Shamkhani, a former top advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The expanded sanctions reinforce Washington’s stated policy of maintaining maximum economic pressure on Tehran’s primary revenue-generating networks.
