The United States Government has added Ali Ansari to its list of sanctioned individuals, considered by Washington as a "key sponsor" of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Jamenei. The measures also extend to several illegal Iranian exchange houses, "which move billions of dollars annually on behalf of sanctioned Iranian banks, using a network of shell companies to hide their illicit activities."
According to the Treasury Department, Ansari, who "oversees an extensive global network of assets that benefit" Jamenei and "other regime elites," allegedly consolidated a scheme of massive diversion of public funds "into an extensive portfolio of real estate and commercial properties abroad."
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has stressed that, while "the self-proclaimed supreme leader hides while his regime crumbles," the United States "will continue to use all means at its disposal to isolate him and other regime elites from the global financial system."
The Treasury details that Ansari, a resident of the Emirati city of Dubai, headed a banking entity previously sanctioned by Washington and took advantage of that position "to grant excessive loans and embezzle billions of dollars from the Iranian people" until Iranian authorities ordered the dissolution of said bank in 2025.
This Friday, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced the formal resumption of talks with Iran, although he warned that this does not imply re-establishing the ceasefire, which was broken this very week in a new exchange of bombings between the two countries due to increased tension in the Strait of Hormuz.
Between Tuesday and Thursday, U.S. forces carried out several airstrikes against targets in Iran in response to Iranian actions against ships in the Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran insists that maritime traffic must be coordinated with its forces until a final peace agreement is reached in the Middle East in the face of the Israeli-American offensive.
In reaction to those bombings, which caused at least fourteen deaths and nearly 80 injuries in two days, Iran responded by launching missiles and drones against U.S. interests in various countries in the region, amid mutual accusations of failing to comply with the terms of the memorandum signed in June between both parties.