Trump Sanctions Pivot Helps Iran Oil Tycoons Boost War Profits
Sanctioned traders, including Hossein Shamkhani, have been able to move oil through the Strait of Hormuz and exploit higher prices.
Oil tankers and ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz on March 11.
Photographer: Altaf Qadri/AP PhotoJust two weeks after the Justice Department targeted Hossein Shamkhani’s sprawling shipping empire, another arm of the US government, the Treasury, effectively gave the network breathing space — helping make the sanctioned Iranian oil mogul an early financial beneficiary of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Shamkhani's web of companies has helped keep crude flowing through the Strait of Hormuz — the critical waterway effectively closed to most commercial oil shipments in recent weeks by Tehran — and from floating storage anchored offshore, according to people familiar with the Islamic Republic's complex shipping operations and tanker-tracking data reviewed by Bloomberg News.