US Treasury sanctions Supreme Leader of Iran's personal banker

The United States Treasury Department on Friday announced sanctions against the personal banker of Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, targeting his network of assets abroad that benefit the country's most senior leadership. 

The banker, Ali Ansari, is an Iranian national who lives abroad in Dubai, where he has used his ties to the Iranian regime to embezzle government funds and amass "a global network of investment properties and financial holdings," according to the U.S. government. 

His efforts, the agency says, serve to enrich the Supreme Leader himself as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime's paramilitary force tasked with keeping the Islamic revolutionary regime in power.

“The so-called Supreme Leader is hiding in seclusion while his regime crumbles,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Treasury will continue using every tool at its disposal to isolate him and other regime elites from the global financial system.  We will preserve these assets for the Iranian people.” 

The Treasury Department said the new sanctions are a direct response to Iran's new attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week that ended the fragile ceasefire between Tehran and Washington under a Memorandum of Understanding negotiated by U.S. Vice President JD Vance. 

In addition to sanctions against Ansari and his network, the Treasury Department announced measures targeting Iranian exchange houses which move money for sanctioned Iranian banks.