US targets senior IRGC commanders, officials in latest Iran sanctions

The US Treasury on Friday, January 30, announced a new round of sanctions related to Iran, targeting six Iranian officials accused of playing key roles in the Islamic Republic’s violent suppression of its own population.

Among those sanctioned were Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni and Majid Khademi, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organisation.

The Treasury also added several senior security commanders to its blacklist, including Hamid Damghani, the IRGC commander in Gilan province; Mehdi Hajian, commander of the Law Enforcement Forces in Kermanshah province; Hossein Zarei Kamali, who leads the Ansar al-Hussein IRGC unit in Hamedan; and Ghorban Mohammad Vali-Zadeh, commander of the Seyyed al-Shohada IRGC unit in Tehran.

In addition to the officials, the sanctions targeted Iranian businessman Babak Zanjani, described by US authorities as “a criminal Iranian investor who previously embezzled billions of dollars in Iranian oil revenue that rightfully belonged to the Iranian people and was never fully recovered.”

According to the Treasury, Zanjani was “freed from imprisonment in order to launder money for the regime” and has since provided financial support for major projects benefiting the IRGC and the broader Iranian leadership.

The Treasury also designated two digital asset exchanges linked to Zanjani, noting that they had “processed large volumes of funds associated with IRGC-linked counterparties.”

By Tamilla Hasanova