expression. Two British Banks Used by Iran to Evade Sanctions

Iran used two of the UK's biggest banks to secretly move money around the world as part of a massive scheme backed by Iranian intelligence to evade Western sanctions. Published by a British newspaper on February 5 Financial Times.

“Lloyds and Santander UK have given accounts to British shell companies that secretly own a sanctioned Iranian petrochemical company near Buckingham Palace” An economic newspaper that claims to have consulted the documents indicates.

State-controlled petrochemical company PCC“Network US Alleges Raised Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for Al-Quds Force”, Responsible for external operations in the Revolutionary Guard Corps [l’armée idéologique du régime iranien] And work “Russian Intelligence Services to Fund Militants” Pro-Tehran in the region.

Both PCC and its British subsidiary PCC UK have been under US sanctions since November 2018, it says. Financial Times.

But despite the obstacles, “Documents, emails and accounting records show that throughout this period, PCC's UK division continued to operate. [depuis un bureau à Londres] […] Leveraging a complex network of leading companies in the UK and beyond.

High tension with Tehran

The revelations come against a backdrop of rising tensions between the United States and its allies, the United Kingdom and Iran and its proxies in the Middle East.

Washington and London have carried out several strikes over the past two weeks against the Houthis, an Iranian-backed rebel group that has continued its attacks against merchant ships, including British vessels, in the Red Sea and disrupted international shipping.

U.S. sanctions against Iran have been strengthened since the U.S. unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the historic Iran nuclear deal reached in 2015 between international powers and Tehran.

Since then, efforts have been made to revive the deal, but negotiations have been stalled since August 2022.