Fishermen motor past a commercial vessel anchored off Yemen’s coast at Bab al-Mandeb, in the straits connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean on September 12, 2026.
– | Afp | Getty Images
The U.S. Treasury Department is sanctioning 17 additional vessels it says are connected to Iran’s “shadow fleet” used to transport oil and gas out of the country, as Washington tries to choke Tehran’s economy to end the war that began over seven months ago.
The new sanctions are part of “Operation Economic Outcast,” the name given to the U.S. pressure campaign against Iran. The new designations are aimed at further limiting Iran’s ability to transport and profit from petroleum and petrochemicals.
“Treasury is starving the tyrannical regime in Tehran of the money it uses to wage war in the region, and we will continue exposing those who enable the regime’s oil sales,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “No enabler of Iranian sanctions evasion is safe from the full force of Treasury’s authorities.”
The new vessels being sanctioned are registered under more than a dozen jurisdictions, and Treasury said in a press release they are responsible for the transport of millions of barrels of Iranian crude, petroleum and petrochemical products. The U.S. has long said Iran uses illicit oil revenues to fund its regime and related terror proxies and hopes to cripple Tehran’s economy by stemming that revenue.
— CNBC’s Spencer Kimball contributed to this report.