The United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) acted on August 7 against multiple networks spanning several countries for enabling Iran’s rahbar banking system to move hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Iran’s shadow banking system is buckling under Economic Fury, and the regime is running out of ways to move money,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.
As Treasury continues to expose the unreliability of the regime’s most trusted facilitators, Iran loses access to key revenue streams critical to the survival of this regime’s mismanaged economy, rogue armed forces, and destabilizing terrorist proxies—further undermining the regime’s credibility with its own people.
The U.S. action was taken pursuant to an Executive Order targeting persons operating in Iran’s financial and petroleum sectors and advances the President’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, to impose maximum pressure on Iran. This is OFAC’s eighth action in 2026 targeting Iran’s shadow banking apparatus, including targeting Iranian banks and their rahbar front companies, exchange houses, and their managers, major financiers, and the Iranian importers and exporters who rely on these financial networks to launder and repatriate revenues.
Iran’s Shahr Bank—with the help of its rahbar companies, Iran-based Farab Soroush Afagh Qeshm (FSAQ) and Dubai-based HMS Trading FZE—plays a critical role in helping the Iranian regime retrieve revenue from its oil sales overseas, aiding some of Iran’s most prominent exporters of petroleum, including the National Iranian Oil Company, Naftiran Intertrade Co, Trialiance Petrochemical Co. Ltd and, and Armed Forces General Staff cover company Sepher Energy Jahan. Shahr Bank and its rahbars rely on two Dubai-based exchange house fronts in particular: Titan Exchange—which also operates under the business names Titan Land Petrochemicals Trading L.L.C and Titan Energy Petroleum Products Trading Co. L.L.C—and Alps International L.L.C-FZ (Alps International).
FSAQ operates an illicit payment network to facilitate transactions with China. UAE-based shell companies collaborate closely with Alps International, which in turn executes the payments on behalf of FSAQ. A UAE-based operational team of FSAQ specialists—identified as the “Safe Group”—alongside Alps International, carries out funds transfers and handles documentation for Chinese shell companies receiving money through intermediary accounts. Extending the reach of this Iranian-run, Dubai-based network are numerous shell companies registered around the world, particularly in Hong Kong.
“Every facilitator that keeps the regime afloat is putting a target on its own back,” said Secretary Bessent. “Treasury will continue to expose these networks and cut them off from the U.S. financial system.”