A federal jury in Boston has convicted Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, a 43-year-old dual US-Iranian national from Natick, Massachusetts, of conspiring to export sophisticated American microelectronics to Iran in breach of US sanctions. Following a 14-day trial, Sadeghi was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), together with two substantive counts under

The guilty plea of Avtandil Kalandadze offers a useful case study in how dark fleet sanctions evasion converges with terrorist financing exposure, deceptive shipping practices and active obstruction of enforcement. Kalandadze, 47, a Georgian national and former master of the tanker Bella 1, has pleaded guilty in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to failing to heave to a US Coast Guard cutter. The plea follows a multi-week pursuit from the Caribbean Sea across

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced the arrest and charging of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national and alleged senior member of Kata’ib Hizballah, in a major terrorism case linked to Iranian-backed networks. Al-Saadi, 32, is accused of acting as an operative for Kata’ib Hizballah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), both designated by the US as foreign terrorist organisations. Prosecutors allege he was involved in almost 20 atta

FinCEN’s 11 May 2026 Alert signals a renewed enforcement focus on Iran-linked illicit finance, with particular attention on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its oil smuggling networks and the financial infrastructure used to move proceeds through the international system. The Alert is significant because it connects several core risk areas: shadow fleet activity, front company abuse, exchange house networks, money services businesses, trust and company service pr

The United States has filed civil forfeiture complaints seeking the seizure of more than $15.3 million allegedly linked to an illicit Iranian oil shipping and distribution network operating in violation of US sanctions. The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleges the funds were used to support a sanctions evasion scheme tied to Iran’s National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including the IRGC-Quds Force (IRGC-QF), both designated Fore

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has updated its global lists of jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies in anti-money laundering, combating the financing of terrorism and counter-proliferation finance (AML/CFT/CPF), prompting the U.S Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to alert financial institutions to the changes. Following its February plenary meeting, FATF added Kuwait and Papua New Guinea to its list of jurisdictions under

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking the seizure of a crude oil tanker and approximately 1.8 million barrels of oil allegedly connected to sanctions evasion involving Iran and Venezuela. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, targets the motor tanker Skipper , which was seized on the high seas in December 2025. Authorities also seek forfeiture of the cargo on board, consisting of crude oil suppl

The US Department of the Treasury has moved to sever Swiss lender MBaer Merchant Bank AG from the US financial system, citing its alleged role in facilitating illicit finance linked to Iran and Russia. In a notice of proposed rulemaking published on 26 February 2026, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) set out plans that would prohibit covered US financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts for, or on behalf of, MBaer. The proposed a

The United States Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has released a new Financial Trend Analysis (FTA) revealing around 9 billion dollars in potential Iranian shadow banking activity that passed through US correspondent accounts in 2024. The findings, based on reports from US financial institutions, underscore the scale and sophistication of Tehran’s global sanctions evasion operations. According to FinCEN, Iran’s shadow banking network

A Lebanese national has been sentenced to 44 months in prison for conspiring to export US-made drill rigs to Iran in violation of US...

The CEO of a Tehran-based engineering company has been arrested in the United States on allegations of orchestrating a covert export...

In a coordinated move to counter Iran’s growing use of illicit financial infrastructure, the United States Treasury has unleashed a...