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The Treasury Department has sanctioned Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, the agency Tehran created to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and charge vessels tolls as high as $2 million each.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: Earlier this month, Iran announced the creation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), a government agency set up to control which ships are allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s how it works: any vessel wanting to transit the waterway has to apply to the authority for “permission,” hand over sensitive information about itself, and pay a toll that can run as high as $2 million per ship (with payments accepted in everything from cash to cryptocurrency to informal swaps and in-kind arrangements). In exchange, the PGSA grants approval and directs the vessel along a specific Iranian-designated route hugging the country’s coast, coordinating the traffic alongside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its navy. Ships are expected to follow the Guard’s instructions, and the toll money collected is funneled directly to the IRGC.

What’s going on now: The US Treasury added the PGSA to its sanctions blacklist on Wednesday under a counterterrorism authority, describing the body as a front for the IRGC to “extort vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.” In a statement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “The Iranian military’s latest attempt to extort global maritime trade is proof that Economic Fury has left the regime desperate for cash.”

Beyond targeting the authority itself, the department warned that anyone who cooperates with it, including by paying the tolls, could be exposed to US sanctions of their own.

The move is the latest piece of “Economic Fury,” a sweeping sanctions campaign the Treasury says has already disrupted tens of billions of dollars in Iranian revenue and frozen nearly half a billion dollars in regime-linked cryptocurrency, all aimed at choking off funding for Iran’s weapons programs and proxies.

This all comes as the Strait of Hormuz (through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil flows) has been effectively closed since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28, sending energy prices soaring, and the new penalties land in the middle of stalled negotiations where Trump has claimed Iran is “negotiating on fumes” while warning that the US may “have to just finish the job” if no deal is reached.