Dec. 30 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Tuesday sanctioned 10 people and entities for their alleged participation in weapons trades between Venezuela and Iran.
Among them is a Venezuelan company accused of assisting Iran in sending unmanned aerial vehicles to Venezuela, treasury officials said in a news release.
“Treasury is holding Iran and Venezuela accountable for their aggressive and reckless proliferation of deadly weapons around the world,” said John K. Hurley, treasury under-secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
“We will continue to take swift action to deprive those who enable Iran’s military-industrial complex access to the U.S. financial system.”
The new sanctions are in addition to the Treasury Department’s non-proliferation designations in October and November that support existing U.N. sanctions and other restrictions placed on Iran on Sept. 27.
“Iran’s UAV and missile programs threaten U.S. and allied personnel in the Middle East and destabilize commercial shipping in the Red Sea,” treasury officials said
“Iran’s ongoing provision of conventional weapons to Caracas constitutes a threat to U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere, including the Homeland, and the United States will use all available measures to prevent this trade.”
The sanctions apply to Venezuela-based Empresa Aeronautica Nacional SA, which treasury officials said assembles aircraft and UAVs from Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics and rebrands them as UAVs produced in Venezuela.
The Iranian UAVs are capable of carrying out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and some are capable of launching Iranian-produced guided air-to-ground bombs.
EANSA Chairman Jose Jesus Urdaneta Gonzalez also is sanctioned for allegedly facilitating the arms trade between Iran and Venezuela.
The OFAC also is sanctioning Iran-based individuals for their alleged efforts to obtain chemicals used to manufacture propellants for ballistic missiles.
They include Mostafa Rostami Sani, who chairs the newly sanctioned Pardisan Rezvan Shargh International Joint Stock Co. in Iran, Reza Zarepour Taraghi, who is the company’s managing director.
Also sanctioned are Iranians Mehdi Ghaffari, Erfan Qaysari, Bahram Rezaei and Iran-based firms Fanavari Electro Moj Mobin Co. and Kavoshgaran Asman Moj Ghadir Private Joint Stock Co.
The sanctions were done in furtherance of President Donald Trump‘s February directive to “curtail Iran’s ballistic missile program, counter Iran’s development of other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities, deny Iran a nuclear weapon, and deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps access to assets and resources that sustain their destabilizing activities.”
The sanctions freeze any assets located in or controlled by individuals in the United States and its territories.
They also come as protests have spread in Iran amid the nation’s collapsing currency and other economic and societal problems.
