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The Treasury Department sanctioned a Turkish investment bank and two of its subsidiaries, accusing them of moving tens of millions of dollars for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.

Getting into it: The designations hit Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi and its subsidiaries Golden Global Varlik Kiralama and Golden Global Portfoy Yonetimi, placing all three on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals list and cutting them off from the US financial system. Treasury says the bank was set up specifically to let Iran’s rahbar network, the regime’s shadow banking apparatus, move oil revenues from China into Turkey, where money exchangers could convert them to cash and gold.

It also says the bank knowingly offered correspondent banking services to Iranian institutions, including accounts tied to Turkish businessman Sitki Ayan and his companies, a network OFAC sanctioned in 2022 for moving hundreds of millions of dollars in Quds Force oil sales.

Golden Global pushed back hard. The bank said that it follows all local and international compliance rules, that no transactions exist that would substantiate Treasury’s claims, and that the individuals and entities named in the OFAC decision have never been its customers. “We will exercise all our rights of objection and legal recourse in the most effective manner and will take the necessary actions at the earliest against these allegations and the decision,” it said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed it as a warning shot. “Financial institutions continue to find out the hard way that we are serious about Operation Economic Outcast,” he said. “While we hope no more banks will need to be sanctioned, that ultimately depends on how quickly the international community comes to its senses and ceases support of the murderous Iranian regime. We know who you are, we know where you are, and we will continue to take action together with our allies and partners until we have buried the head of the Iranian snake.”

US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack added, “This designation is aimed at the conduct of one entity, not at a nation, not at a banking system, and not at an ally. The health of the Turkish financial system is not in question; the conduct of one institution was.”