The US Treasury Department on Wednesday announced sanctions targeting a money laundering network that it said moved Iranian oil to Venezuela in exchange for gold, which was later sold on Turkey’s black market to generate funds for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and Hezbollah.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Iranian national Seyed Naiemaei Badroddin Moosavi, described as a Hezbollah financier tied to the IRGC-QF, along with three companies linked to the scheme.

According to the Treasury Department, Moosavi arranged for Iranian oil to be smuggled to the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for gold, some of it acquired below market value.

The gold was then flown on US-designated Mahan Air to Hezbollah members in Tehran, including US-designated Hezbollah financier Ali Qasir, and from there smuggled to Turkey, where it was sold on the black market.

The proceeds were then sent back to Iran for the IRGC-QF through what Treasury described as a Hezbollah financing channel that operated for more than five years.

Moosavi worked with Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah, a former Venezuelan vice president and oil minister designated by the United States as a narcotics trafficker, and US-designated shipping facilitator Viktor Artemov to move the oil through ship-to-ship transfers, automatic identification system spoofing and so-called zombie tankers, according to the Treasury statement. The oil was reportedly paid for with gold and diamonds.

OFAC said Moosavi had direct contact with Maduro, who is currently being held in federal custody in New York on drug trafficking charges. Moosavi also assumed some of the financial facilitation efforts previously carried out by Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab, whom US authorities have described as Maduro’s frontman, after Saab’s 2020 arrest. Saab was arrested in Cape Verde in 2020 and was rearrested in Venezuela in February in a joint operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation following Maduro’s capture.

The Moosavi designations came as part of a broader OFAC action targeting the shipping network of Iranian oil trader Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the son of Ali Shamkhani, the former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who was killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.

OFAC designated more than two dozen individuals, companies and vessels in the Shamkhani network, which Treasury described as a multibillion dollar Iranian and Russian petroleum sales network. The action was taken under Executive Order 13902, which authorizes sanctions on key sectors of Iran’s economy, and Executive Order 13224, the US counterterrorism sanctions authority.

According to Treasury, the Shamkhani network uses a fleet of crude oil, petroleum product and liquefied petroleum gas tankers to transport Iranian and Russian petroleum. OFAC said it targeted nine vessels and their related companies in Wednesday’s action. Among them were tankers that had carried more than 20 cargoes of Russian petroleum products in 2025 and a vessel that had transported more than 3 million barrels of Iranian liquefied petroleum gas since the start of that year.

The network also relies on a set of United Arab Emirates-based front companies, ranging from shipping firms to consulting and administrative entities, that Treasury said project an appearance of legitimacy. Newly designated entities included House of Shipping Investment FZCO, Taylor Shipping FZCO, Oriel Group and Meritron DMCC, which Treasury described as a front company that sought to purchase two new vessels worth tens of millions of dollars from South Korea on behalf of the network between 2025 and early 2026.

Wednesday’s action builds on OFAC’s July 2025 designation of the Shamkhani network, which Treasury said remains its largest single Iran-related action since the Trump administration resumed its maximum pressure campaign against Tehran. Treasury has said that since National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 was issued, OFAC has designated more than 1,000 individuals, entities, vessels and aircraft.

“Treasury is moving aggressively with Economic Fury by targeting regime elites like the Shamkhani family that attempt to profit at the expense of the Iranian people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. “Under President Trump’s leadership, Treasury will continue to cut off Iran’s illicit smuggling and terror proxy networks.”