The Biden administration has charged members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in multiple criminal cases, accusing them of illicitly trafficking oil to fund terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Federal officials also said Friday that they’ve seized $108 million and 500,000 barrels of Iranian fuel.
In a separate move, the Biden administration announced sanctions targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ cyber arm and networks contributing to its drone-weapon program.
The sanctions and criminal charges follow a lethal drone attack on a U.S. military base in Jordan linked to an Iranian-backed proxy in Iraq. The attack killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40 troops.
The moves come ahead of what is expected to be a military response to the attack. President Biden on Tuesday suggested that he had decided how to respond to the deaths, but did not offer any specifics.
Seven defendants were charged by the Justice Department with terrorism, sanctions evasion, fraud and money laundering in the Southern District of New York. Federal prosecutors said the charges were related to the alleged trafficking and selling of Iranian oil to government-affiliated buyers in China, Russia and Syria.
Morteza Rostam Ghasemi, the son of an IRGC commander, and an Iranian shipping official were among those charged in connection with the seizures.
In Washington, prosecutors charged two defendants with sanctions evasion and money laundering, accusing them of selling and trafficking Iranian oil to Chinese government-owned refineries.
Meanwhile, the sanctions against the IRGC’s cyber unit were taken in response to their efforts to hack into critical infrastructure in the Middle East and display an anti-Israeli message.