The United States has accused Russia's VTB bank of supporting Iran's efforts to evade sanctions, taking aim at an institution it already blocked over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In a symbolic move, the US Treasury Department said it has now imposed additional sanctions against VTB Bank for actions “including establishing correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian banks.”
The agency warned foreign financial institutions against dealing with VTB, urging them to cut ties immediately.Washington has sought to step up economic pressure on Tehran as the war in the Middle East enters its seventh month since the United States and Israel launched strikes at Iran in late February.
The conflict saw Tehran retaliate by choking off the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for energy transit, sending oil prices soaring.
Prices at US gasoline pumps have in turn surged, keeping American households under growing financial pressure weeks ahead of US midterm elections.
Since US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed an “economic D-Day” on Iran, Washington has imposed sanctions on other institutions including Turkish bank Golden Global.
VTB, however, already faced US sanctions in 2022, with the Treasury Department imposing “full blocking sanctions” on the bank, meaning that its US-held assets would be frozen and inaccessible to the Kremlin.
At the time, the department added that VTB was “one of the largest financial institutions Treasury has ever blocked.”
On Tuesday, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands issued a joint cybersecurity advisory detailing spyware they say is used by Iranian state-linked actors to target dissidents, activists and journalists, according to Reuters.
Britain's National Cyber Security Centre said Iranian state-linked cyber actors had used a spyware family known as “CHOSEN BRICK” to steal emails, messages and other sensitive information through "spear-phishing" campaigns on messaging platforms including WhatsApp and Telegram.
Meanwhile, Iranian media announced on Monday the launch of a new online portal allowing users to report critics living abroad, a move that has sparked concerns over growing surveillance within the Iranian diaspora.
The surveillance system, named “Alaj” (Healing), aims to identify “traitors,” according to the reports. It was officially established to “protect national security.”
“Betraying Iran has a price and carries legal consequences,” the Fars news agency wrote on Monday.According to the reports, Iranians can use the web portal as well as social media channels to report on the alleged traitors. The identity of informants would be kept confidential, the reports said.
How widely the portal will be used in future remains entirely unclear, although there are fears it will lead to increased mistrust within the Iranian diaspora community.
An estimated 4 million people with Iranian citizenship or an Iranian family background live abroad, according to various estimates. Many of them left the country for political reasons.
The reach of the Iranian security apparatus into Europe and the United States has long meant that Iranians abroad can find it difficult to trust one another.
