WASHINGTON-Today, under Operation Economic Outcast, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated prominent Russian financial institution, VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank) for its involvement in Iranian sanctions evasion, including establishing correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian banks.
“Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and isolate Iran’s enablers.”
OFAC’s action against VTB Bank is being taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13902, which targets certain sectors of the Iranian economy, including Iran’s financial sector. VTB is now among the most comprehensively sanctioned financial institutions in the world. Operation Economic Outcast introduced greater secondary sanctions risk and an accelerated pace of enforcement for those who continue to do business with the Iranian regime. Foreign financial institutions that continued to deal with VTB following its designation under OFAC’s Iran sanctions authorities are exposed to even more sanctions risk than before and should cut off those relationships immediately.
Additionally, this week, Treasury is meeting with global financial institutions to arm them with the information they need to shut down revenue streams and procurement networks tied to the Iranian regime, the IRGC, Iran’s terrorist proxies, and their enablers.
OPERATION ECONOMIC OUTCAST IS ISOLATING THE IRANIAN REGIME
Announced by Secretary Bessent on August 24, 2026 and dubbed “Economic D-Day,” Operation Economic Outcast is severing the remaining economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime. Treasury has mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror. Working with partners across the U.S. government, the European Union, United Kingdom, Gulf partners, and others, Treasury is targeting any source of the regime’s illicit revenue.