After naming Turkish banks suspected of participating in an Iranian sanctions-evasion scheme worth billions of dollars in illicit trade, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) has contacted six Chinese banks, questioning the nature of their relationships with the Iranian regime.
UANI called on the banks, including the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), to cut ties with Tehran.
“Each of the banks contacted is suspected of holding accounts denominated in U.S. dollars that are ultimately controlled by Iranian firms and banking institutions sanctioned by the United States, including Iranian regime-controlled Shahr Bank and Parsian Bank,” UANI said in a statement.
It described how Iranian banks avoid sanctions by accessing the financial system through proxy companies set up overseas by the Iranian regime.
It noted that Parsian Bank was accused by the U.S. Treasury in 2018 of financing firms supporting the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Basij paramilitary reserve force.
So far, only Zhejiang Mintai Commercial Bank responded to UANI, stating it never intended to “do any business in Iran” and that “any business and settlement related to Iran is forbidden.”
“Conducting business with any U.S.-sanctioned Iranian entity makes these financial institutions directly complicit in the activities of the regime and its proxies,” UANI CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace said. “China has thumbed its nose at U.S. sanctions against Iran for years. The lack of a firm response in combination with the warm and abiding ties between Tehran and the Chinese Communist Party has given Chinese financial institutions confidence that there is no consequence for aiding the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. must investigate and disavow them of this notion.”
UANI communicated to the Chinese banks the legal, and financial importance of cutting all ties with Iranian firms and proxy entities, as well as with related business operations.
“In continuing to associate with Iranian firms and banking institutions, each bank will remain vulnerable to the many risks associated with conducting business with the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism,” UANI explained.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)