Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeIran News NowIran Nuclear NewsU.S. Imposes Sanctions on Iranians It Says Are Linked to Regime's WMD...

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Iranians It Says Are Linked to Regime’s WMD Program

Treasury_US_sanctions_28_Aug

The United States has placed sanctions on the leaders of two procurement networks it says are linked to the Iranian regime for engaging in undercover acquisition activities that benefited the Iranian regime’s military.

The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday one of the networks is led by Iranian national Hamed Dehghan, the CEO and chairman of Pishtazan Kavosh Gostar Boshra, LLC, and manager and board chairman of Ebtekar Sanat Ilya.

The agency said the network operated by Hamed Dehghan used a Hong Kong-based company to evade U.S. and global sanctions, and to target U.S. technology and components for people linked to the Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The U.S. State Department designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in April 2019.

The Treasury Department said the second network, led by Iranian national Seyed Hossein Shariat, purchased Nuclear Suppliers Group’s aluminum alloy products for the benefit of the Iranian regime’s military.

“As the Iranian regime attempts to use complex schemes to hide its efforts to bolster its WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), the U.S. government will continue to thwart them at every turn,” said Treasury Department official Sigal Mandelker.

“We urge governments worldwide to recognize the extraordinary lengths to which the regime in Tehran will go to conceal its behavior, and to ensure that their companies and financial institutions are not facilitating Iran’s proliferation activities.”

The department said it also imposed sanctions on individuals linked to the networks.

The sanctions are part of an ongoing U.S. campaign to increase economic pressure on Iran’s regime over its nuclear program, VOA News reported.

In May 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 agreement with the Iranian regime and other world powers that aimed to restrict the regime’s nuclear program.