Treasury Sanctions Networks in China, India, and Russia Supporting Iran's Mahan Air and IRGC

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday imposed sanctions on six entities and individuals located in China, India, Russia, and Iran for providing material support to Mahan Air and an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated front company, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced.

The action is the latest expansion of what has become a sustained economic campaign against Tehran’s financial and logistical networks. Treasury has now sanctioned more than 100 ships since January, in addition to dozens of individuals and corporate entities.

What Was Sanctioned

The six targets fall into three categories: entities and individuals supporting Mahan Air, an IRGC-affiliated front company, and participants in an IRGC-backed extortion program known as the “Hormuz Safe” scheme.

Mahan Air has been a designated entity for years, but U.S. officials say foreign companies — particularly in China, India, and Russia — have continued to provide the airline with financial, logistical, and commercial services. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has repeatedly warned that doing business with sanctioned Iranian entities exposes third-country firms to U.S. secondary sanctions.

According to Treasury, Mahan Air “has long facilitated the movement of IRGC-Quds Force personnel, weapons and military equipment” — a role that U.S. military officials say has continued throughout the current conflict.

The IRGC-affiliated front company designated Wednesday is accused of a more active role: collecting intelligence on the locations of U.S. and Israeli military equipment and providing that data to Iranian targeting cells during the ongoing conflict. Treasury did not disclose the specific company name in the publicly available announcement reviewed by this desk, but described it as operating under IRGC direction.

The “Hormuz Safe” Extortion Scheme

Also targeted in Wednesday’s action is the “Hormuz Safe” program, an IRGC-backed operation that forces commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to purchase mandatory maritime “insurance” — payments that, according to Treasury, are funneled directly to finance Iranian regime activities rather than providing any genuine underwriting function.

The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s traded oil passes. An IRGC tanker fire earlier this week underscored the strategic pressure Iran has sought to apply on maritime traffic through the waterway.

Bessent characterized “Hormuz Safe” as a coercive revenue stream. “Those providing financial, logistical, or commercial support to the IRGC or Mahan Air are helping sustain a terrorist enterprise,” he said in a statement released with the sanctions package. He pledged to “continue increasing economic pressure on Tehran.”

Scope of the Sanctions Campaign

Wednesday’s action follows a broader package announced earlier in the week that targeted eight additional tankers and ten additional entities. Together, the two rounds add significantly to what Treasury describes as a coordinated maximum-pressure posture since the beginning of the year.

Over 100 vessels have been placed on the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals) list since January — a pace that reflects both the intensity of the current Iran-U.S. conflict and the administration’s attempt to cut off the revenue streams that finance Iranian military operations.

U.S. strikes on Iran’s southern port infrastructure at Bandar Abbas, Kish, and Qeshm earlier this week targeted some of the same logistics networks these sanctions are designed to strangle financially.

Third-Country Exposure

The inclusion of entities in China, India, and Russia signals that Treasury is willing to pressure Tehran’s most important economic partners. China and India are the two largest buyers of Iranian crude, and Russian firms have supplied aviation components and services that Iran has used to keep Mahan Air operational despite Western prohibitions.

Secondary sanctions exposure creates a compliance dilemma for firms in those countries: continuing to do business with sanctioned Iranian entities risks losing access to the U.S. financial system, while severing ties imposes commercial costs.

Treasury has historically applied secondary sanctions more aggressively against smaller third-country intermediaries than against major Chinese or Russian state enterprises, but the explicit naming of entities across all three countries in a single action is a signal that the administration is raising the pressure threshold.

Context

The sanctions come as the broader U.S.-Iran conflict has entered a new phase. American strikes in northwestern Iran and Iranian ballistic missile activity targeting U.S. regional assets have marked the past several days, and economic measures are increasingly paired with kinetic operations as part of a dual-track strategy.

Treasury’s OFAC maintains the SDN list and enforces compliance. Entities added to the list are frozen out of the U.S. financial system, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from doing business with them. Foreign entities that knowingly facilitate transactions with SDN-listed parties can be designated themselves.

The Jerusalem Post first reported the details of Wednesday’s sanctions package.