The Treasury Department, which administers the government’s Iran sanctions, said the executive, Babak Morteza Zanjani, had conspired with First Islamic Investment Bank of Malaysia and what the department called an international network of front companies stretching halfway around the world “for moving billions of dollars on behalf of the Iranian regime.”
The announcement, coming just a few days after diplomatic talks with Iran over the nuclear issue adjourned with no sign of progress, was the second high-profile Treasury action against accused violators of the Iranian sanctions in less than a month.
On March 14, the Treasury blacklisted a Greek shipping tycoon, Dimitris Cambis, over what it called his scheme to acquire a fleet of oil tankers on Iran’s behalf and disguise their ownership to ship Iranian oil.
“As international sanctions have become increasingly stifling, Iran has resorted to criminal money-laundering techniques, moving its oil and money under false names and pretenses,” said David S. Cohen, the Treasury’s undersecretary who oversees the sanctions effort.
In a statement, Mr. Cohen said the action announced on Thursday reflected what he called the government’s commitment to “exposing and thwarting Iran’s attempts to evade international sanctions and abuse the global financial system.”
The Treasury action also applied to a Swiss-based Iranian oil trading company, Naftiran Intertrade, which the Treasury said was owned by the National Iranian Oil Company, which has already been blacklisted.
The American sanctions freeze the assets of blacklisted individuals and companies and prohibit American dealings with them. Foreign companies that do business with any names on the blacklist run the risk of American penalties as well.
A senior Treasury official, speaking on the condition that he not be identified by name, said it was a sign of Iran’s desperation that it had been forced into a money-laundering relationship with Mr. Zanjani that had been relatively easy to trace.
“These are Rube Goldberg-type networks, in efforts to try to get access to revenues, and not being able to do so in a way that escapes our attention,” the official said.
Mr. Zanjani, who is the chairman of more than 60 companies known collectively as the Sorinet Group, based in the United Arab Emirates, did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment.
But it is not the first time that he has been accused of violating Western sanctions on Iran, an accusation he has denied.
Last December, the European Union identified him as a “key facilitator of Iranian oil deals” and forbade European Union companies or individuals from doing Iran-related business with him. Mr. Zanjani said at the time that he had done nothing wrong. “This is a mistake,” he was quoted by Reuters as saying.
The United States and the European Union have been using increasingly onerous economic sanctions against Iran as part of their effort to force the country to make concessions in the protracted dispute over its enrichment of uranium, which it has continued in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions requesting a halt to the enrichment.
The West has accused Iran of seeking the capacity to build nuclear weapons, an accusation that the Iranians have denied.
The sanctions have basically banished Iran from the global banking system, caused a severe devaluation in its currency and sharply reduced its ability to sell oil, the country’s most important export.
Iranian leaders have called the sanctions useless bullying that will only harden their resolve to prevail.
At the same time, the lack of diplomatic progress to resolve the dispute has increased sentiment among Iran’s critics for even tougher economic sanctions, including a trade embargo, and has resurrected warnings from the Obama administration that “all options are on the table” — a reference to possible military action if Iran is thought to be close to the ability to make a weapon.
President Obama said last month that his administration believed it would take “over a year or so” for Iran to achieve that ability, and sanctions advocates said the Treasury’s focus on starving Iran financially appeared to be part of that calculus.
“The Obama administration is committed to targeting the oil-related payments that are essential to Iran’s ability to replenish its dwindling foreign exchange reserves,” said Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based advocacy group that has pushed for stronger sanctions.
Mr. Dubowitz said, “The administration is in a race to intensify the pressure, and try to reach a diplomatic deal, before Iranian nuclear physics wins.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/world/us-blacklists-an-iranian-and-businesses-over-violation-of-sanctions.html?partner=rss&emc=rss