The Treasury Department implemented new sanctions on Thursday targeting what the agency described as a “network of front companies and shipping facilitators that bankroll the Iranian armed forces by selling crude oil” — a critical revenue stream for the regime.

The latest round of sanctions, one of several announced in recent months, also targets six vessels in Iran’s “shadow fleet” of tankers used to transport oil to international markets, joining a list of more than 170 such vessels which have been sanctioned this year.

The Treasury is also adding sanctions on a subsidiary of Mahan Air, an Iranian airline used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to help supply proxies and allies across the region.

“Today’s action continues Treasury’s campaign to cut off funding for the Iranian regime’s development of nuclear weapons and support of terrorist proxies,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Disrupting the Iranian regime’s revenue is critical to helping curb its nuclear ambitions.”

In its announcement, the Treasury Department said that Iran’s oil exports are a crucial source of funding for the Iranian regime, particularly as the Islamic Republic seeks to rebuild after its war with Israel.

“Following its defeat in the 12-Day War with Israel, Iran’s military has increasingly come to rely on the sale of Iranian crude oil to supplement its annual budget and finance the rebuilding of its depleted forces,” the statement reads.

The companies targeted under the sanctions are tied to Sepehr Energy Jahan Nama Pars Company, an arm of the Iranian military responsible for oil sales and exports. The companies being targeted operated variously out of the UAE, Panama, Greece, India and Liberia.

The ships in question are flagged in Palau, Panama and Gambia.

According to the Treasury’s announcement, Mahan subsidiary Yazd International Airways Company was used by the IRGC to transport Quds Force officers to Lebanon to support Hezbollah attacks on Israel and to ship weapons to the Assad regime in Syria. 

The sanctions also seek to crack down on Mahan’s procurement of Western aircraft and identify several such aircraft as blocked property.

Bessent also attended a meeting at the White House on Thursday with recently freed hostages.

“We heard their firsthand accounts of the atrocities experienced on that day and over the past two years,” Bessent said on X. “Thanks to President Trump’s historic actions and bold leadership, all of the hostages have been freed, and we are closer than ever to a lasting peace in the Middle East. At @USTreasury, we are committed to safeguarding Americans and our allies from terror, wherever it presents.”

The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Ohio branch moderated an online event last week featuring a Hamas official designated as a terrorist by the Treasury Department, as well as other Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members.

The Beirut-based think tank Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations hosted an event in Arabic last week titled “Palestinians Abroad and Regional International Strategic Transformations in Light of Operation Al-Aksa Flood,” using Hamas’ name for its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.

Among the speakers at the web conference was Majed al-Zeer, who was designated by the Treasury Department in October 2024 as “the senior Hamas representative in Germany, who is also one of the senior Hamas members in Europe and has played a central role in the terrorist group’s European fundraising.” 

Al-Zeer said that “the resistance” is key to maintaining the momentum of a “strategic shift” in how Europe and the world views the Palestinian issue.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad financier Sami al-Arian, a former University of South Florida computer science professor who was deported from the U.S. in 2015 due to his ties to the terrorist group, said on the same panel as Al-Zeer that “the overall Palestinian situation is much better strategically than it was before the flood [Oct. 7].”

CAIR-Ohio Director Khalid Turaani moderated one panel with commentary provided by Ziad el-Aloul, who is active in several Hamas-affiliated organizations in Europe, including the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, which was designated a terrorist group by Israel in 2021 for its work on behalf of Hamas. More recently, PCPA was found to be involved in facilitating the Global Sumud Flotilla that attempted to sail to Gaza with climate activist Greta Thunberg on board.

Another speaker in the Turaani-led panel expressed hope that the Turkish army would deploy in Gaza and fight the IDF.

The CAIR-Ohio director’s participation in a conference with senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad figures came two months after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) called for an IRS investigation into the organization and the revocation of its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, citing alleged “ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

CAIR did not respond to a request for comment. 

The Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that it sanctioned an illicit Iranian shipping empire run by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the son of a prominent Iranian government official. According to officials at the Treasury Department, the new sanctions — targeting more than 115 individuals, entities and shipping vessels — represent the largest Iran-related action since 2018.

“​​Our goal is to limit Tehran’s primary source of revenue, to pressure the regime to end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program and stop its support for terrorist groups,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender told reporters on Wednesday. “The Trump administration seeks to drive down Iranian oil exports under President [Donald] Trump’s renewed max pressure campaign.”

Shamkhani is the son of Ali Shamkhani, a senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, who had supervised nuclear negotiations with the U.S. earlier this year. He controls a vast shipping network that stretches far beyond Iran, with ties to India, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Italy and Switzerland, among other nations based mostly in Europe and the Middle East, according to the Treasury Department. The network generates tens of billions of dollars in profit. 

Shamkhani and other Iranian oil traders often obscure their connections to Iran when overseas, and Treasury Department officials said the new sanctions will make it more difficult for them to conduct business abroad.

“What this action underscores is the extraordinary steps the Iranian regime is having to go through to execute oil sales,” a senior Treasury official said Wednesday. “Those that continue to go forward are going to be more complicated, making it harder for Iran to execute, and more importantly, likely resulting in them generating less revenue.”

Shamkhani’s network does not only transport Iranian oil. It also transports Russian oil, and last week he was sanctioned by the European Union for his role in the Russian oil trade.

“We fully are recognizing and going after this network because of the illicit activity that involves Russia and Iran,” the senior official said. A Bloomberg News investigation published last year detailed Shamkhani’s ties to both Moscow and Tehran. 

According to a Foundation for Defense of Democracies analysis, Iran exported 1.7 million barrels of oil per day in June, a higher figure than during the Biden administration. Iranian oil exports averaged 800,000 barrels per day at points in Trump’s first term, at the height of his maximum pressure sanctions campaign.

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Tuesday on several individuals and charities that the U.S. alleges are connected to the terrorist groups Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

“Today’s action underscores the importance of safeguarding the charitable sector from abuse by terrorists like Hamas and the PFLP, who continue to leverage sham charities as fronts for funding their terrorist and military operations,” Michael Faulkender, the department’s deputy secretary, said in a statement.  

“Treasury will continue to use all available tools to prevent Hamas, the PFLP, and other terrorist actors from exploiting the humanitarian situation in Gaza to fund their violent activities at the expense of their own people.”

The sanctions will target “five individuals and five sham charities located abroad that are prominent financial supporters of Hamas’s Military Wing and its terrorist activities,” the Treasury Department said, as well as a separate fraudulent charity linked to the PFLP.

Both terror groups have a long history of abusing the charitable sector under the pretense of humanitarian work. The sanctions come as Hamas continues to hold 55 hostages in Gaza — including the bodies of two Americans.

The sanctions will have implications, including civil and criminal penalties, for any individual or entity that does business with the designated groups, according to the department. 

The announcement builds on recent Treasury Department efforts to target terror funding networks, including its designation in October of the anti-Israel group Samidoun as a “sham charity” operating as a key international fundraiser for PFLP.