WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department is asking U.S. banks to monitor for customers who may be laundering money for Iran’s oil smuggling and cryptocurrency operations, according to a department report released Monday. The request, which effectively enlists the global financial system in an effort to disrupt Iran’s sanctions-evasion pipelines, arrives as the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran remains deeply uncertain.
President Donald Trump said Monday that the Iran ceasefire is on “life support” after he rejected Tehran’s latest peace proposal, signaling a growing impatience with diplomatic efforts. Instead, the Trump administration has intensified an economic campaign designed to strangle Iran’s access to international finance.
The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) report said oil firms with ties to Iran conducted roughly $4 billion in transactions in 2024. Separately, dozens of shipping companies based in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong — all linked to transporting sanctioned Iranian crude — processed about $707 million through U.S. accounts last year.
As part of the new guidance, banks are being asked to watch for crude oil labeled as “Malaysian blend” to mask its Iranian origin. Other red flags include missing or falsified shipping documents, ship-to-ship transfers that obscure a cargo’s source, newly formed companies moving unusually large sums, and transactions routed through multiple intermediaries or connected to Iranian cryptocurrency firms.
The banking push builds on an earlier Treasury warning. In April, the department sent letters to financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the UAE and Oman, threatening to levy secondary sanctions if they continued facilitating Iranian business. The letters accused those countries’ financial systems of allowing “illicit activities” to flow through their institutions.
By combining a bombing campaign with a widening financial squeeze, the Trump administration is attempting to force Tehran into concessions without a broader negotiated settlement. The new bank-monitoring initiative extends that economic warfare directly into the wiring rooms of American and international banks.