OFAC targets Iraq-based ‘conduit for Qods Force’

On 12 June, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) imposed sanctions on ‘an Iraq-based Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) financial conduit, South Wealth Resources Company (SWRC)’, which, it says, ‘has trafficked hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to IRGC-QF-backed Iraqi militias.’

In a press release, OFAC said that SWRC and its two Iraqi associates (also being designated), have ‘covertly facilitated the IRGC-QF’s access to the Iraqi financial system to evade sanctions.’

It added that the scheme ‘served to enrich previously sanctioned Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi advisor to IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani, who has run weapons smuggling networks and participated in bombings of Western embassies and attempted assassinations in the region.’

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said action was being taken ‘to shut down Iranian weapons smuggling networks that have been used to arm regional proxies of the IRGC Qods Force in Iraq, while personally enriching regime insiders. The Iraqi financial sector and the broader international financial system must harden their defences against the continued deceptive tactics emanating from Tehran in order to avoid complicity in the IRGC’s ongoing sanctions evasion schemes and other malign activities.’

See:
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20190612.aspx