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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among them is a Venezuelan company accused of assisting Iran in sending unmanned aerial vehicles to Venezuela, treasury officials said in a\u2002news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We will continue to take swift action to deprive those who enable Iran’s military-industrial complex access to the U.S. financial system.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Iran’s UAV<\/a> and missile programs threaten U.S. and allied personnel in the Middle East and destabilize commercial shipping in the Red Sea,” treasury officials said<\/p>\n\n\n\n “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.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EANSA Chairman Jose Jesus<\/a> Urdaneta Gonzalez also is sanctioned for allegedly facilitating the arms trade between Iran and Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The OFAC also is sanctioning Iran-based individuals for their alleged efforts to obtain chemicals used to manufacture propellants for ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sanctions were done in furtherance of President Donald Trump<\/a>‘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<\/a> access to assets and resources that sustain their destabilizing activities.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sanctions freeze any assets located in or controlled by individuals in the United States and its territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They also come as protests have spread<\/a> in Iran amid the nation’s collapsing currency and other economic and societal problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n