VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, has been helping Iran evade sanctions and sustain its support for terrorism. VTB Bank opened offices in Iran, built banking ties with sanctioned Iranian financial institutions, and worked to move billions of dollars in Iranian assets.
As a consequence, under Operation Economic Outcast, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company for its involvement in Iranian sanctions evasion, including establishing correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian banks.
“Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and isolate Iran’s enablers.”
VTB is now among the most sanctioned financial institutions in the world. Foreign banks that continue to deal with VTB following its designation under OFAC’s Iran sanctions authorities are now exposed to more sanctions risk than before and should cut off those relationships immediately.
Additionally, the Treasury Department is meeting with global financial institutions to arm them with the information they need to shut down revenue streams and procurement networks tied to the Iranian regime, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s terrorist proxies, and their enablers.
Launched on August 24 and dubbed “Economic D-Day,” Operation Economic Outcast is severing the remaining economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime. Treasury has mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror. Working with partners across the U.S. government, the European Union, United Kingdom, Gulf partners, and others, Treasury is targeting any source of the regime’s illicit revenue.
Treasury warned that any entity facilitating money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system. Indeed, recent Treasury designations targeting banks in Turkey and UAE serves as a warning to financial institutions and other foreign businesses that there is no safe way to do business with Iran.
The message is clear: any effort to help Iran evade sanctions will carry serious consequences, including exposure to U.S. financial restrictions.
The United States will continue to use every diplomatic and economic tool at its disposal to isolate the Iranian regime. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott urged the international community to “join this effort to sever the financial lifelines of a regime that threatens peace and security.”