Washington wins more than $ 40 million from Iranian Revolutionary Guard

Washington: The United States announced Thursday that it has earned more than $ 40 million from the resale of Iranian oil that was confiscated from four oil tankers bound for Venezuela.

Last August, Washington announced the seizure of 1.1 million barrels of oil that would be sold to Venezuela for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which Washington considers a terrorist organization.

“Now we can say that the United States sold this oil and turned it over” to a third party, Assistant Attorney General John Demers said during a news conference. “We intend to transfer the proceeds from the sale to a fund for American victims of terrorism,” he added.

“We estimate that the amounts verified amount to more than 40 million,” said the attorney in charge of the case, Michael Sherwin, in the largest seizure made by the United States to date.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, but its production has collapsed and fuel is running out. US sanctions imposed on President Nicolás Maduro’s regime have forced him to turn to allies such as Iran.

However, in August Tehran denied ownership of the intercepted freighters and made it clear that it had “nothing to do” with this shipment.

And last week, the US government announced new sanctions against 11 companies and five people linked to Iran’s petrochemical sector.

As the November 3 US presidential election approaches, the Donald Trump administration is working to increase sanctions against Iran.

Since his withdrawal in 2018 from the international agreement that was supposed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the US president reinstated and then tightened all US sanctions, especially the embargo on Iranian oil.