US Targets Turkish Bank In New Bid To Cut Iran's Financial Lifelines

WASHINGTON -- The United States has imposed sanctions on a Turkish investment bank and two subsidiaries, accusing them of helping Iran move oil revenue and providing access to the international financial system as Washington intensifies its campaign to squeeze Tehran.

The US Treasury Department on September 4 designated Istanbul-based Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi, along with Golden Global Portfoy Yonetimi and Golden Global Varlik Kiralama, under its Iran sanctions authorities.

The three entities were added to the Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals list, effectively cutting them off from the US financial system. Treasury also issued a general license allowing transactions involving the entities to be wound down.

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The action is part of the Trump administration's newly intensified Operation Economic Outcast, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said will target financial institutions and other channels that help Iran generate and move revenue.

Bessent said financial institutions were continuing to "find out the hard way" that Washington was serious about the campaign. He warned that further action would depend on whether international institutions stopped supporting what he called the "murderous Iranian regime."

The Treasury said Golden Global Bank had facilitated tens of millions of dollars in transactions for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and provided correspondent-banking access that enabled Iranian funds to move internationally.

Golden Global Yatırım Bankası rejected the US allegations and said it has complied with local ‌and international banking and compliance requirements

Financial Chokepoint -- Not A Knockout Blow

The significance of the action may lie less in Golden Global's size than in the role Treasury says it played in Iran's sanctions-evasion network.

According to Treasury, the bank was established to help Iran's "rahbar" shadow-banking network transfer oil revenue from China to Turkey, where the proceeds could then be converted into cash and gold.

Treasury also said the bank provided services to Iranian financial institutions and accounts controlled by the IRGC-QF and its proxies, including those linked to Turkish businessman Sitki Ayan, whose network was sanctioned by Washington in 2022 over hundreds of millions of dollars in IRGC-QF-related oil sales.

That makes the Turkish bank an example of the kind of intermediary Washington is increasingly targeting: not necessarily the ultimate source of Iran's oil income, but a financial hub that can help move, disguise, or convert the proceeds.

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Andrew Sobotka, a former senior sanctions coordinator at the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and now a senior adviser at risk-analytics firm Kharon, told RFE/RL that the designation should be viewed as a warning to financial institutions in countries that continue to conduct business with Iran.

"Treasury’s designation of Golden Global today, and the proposed 311 of Banque Misr's UAE branches last week...should signal to third-country financial institutions that this administration is serious about using multiple tools in its economic security toolbox to go after Iranian financial flows," Sobotka said.

He said US and other G7 correspondent banks could play an important role by pressing their foreign banking partners to strengthen systems for detecting and preventing Iranian transactions.

"Third-country financial institutions should be thinking not only about avoiding sanctions or other actions from the US government, but also about what their correspondent banks might increasingly expect from them," Sobotka said.

How Much Pressure Can US Really Apply?

The broader US objective of such action appears aimed at making banks, money exchangers, and companies in third countries conclude that servicing Iranian business carries risks that outweigh profits.

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"The real strategy behind the sanctioning of Golden Global may be deterrence. Treasury wants Turkish banks and companies to look at this designation and decide that Iranian business simply isn’t worth the risk," Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, told RFE/RL.

But he cautioned that financial de-risking alone would not necessarily cripple Iran's economy.

"Some will. The problem is that de-risking at the margins is still a very long way from breaking the Iranian economy," he said.

The choice of a Turkish bank is significant because Turkey is a major regional commercial and financial hub and a NATO member that maintains substantial economic ties with Iran.