The State Department and Treasury Department announced sanctions Wednesday against six entities and individuals across four countries for supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeting the network that keeps Iran’s IRGC-linked airline operating internationally and a front company accused of directing military strikes.
“Today, the U.S. is sanctioning six entities in China, India, Russia and Iran for supporting the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott wrote on X. “We remain committed to disrupting illicit financing streams that fund the regime’s armed forces and malign activity across the region.”
The State Department’s official statement said the action targets entities supporting Mahan Air, which it described as “the IRGC’s airline of choice for moving weapons, military personnel, and equipment,” as well as DadeNegar Startup Studio, an IRGC-affiliated front company the department said supported Iranian military targeting by soliciting locations of American and Israeli equipment in the Middle East.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control detailed the individual designations in its own press release. In China, the department designated Shanghai Wings International Logistics Co, a general sales agent for Mahan Air that coordinated the transport of electronics from China to Iran, along with Tang Xin, the company’s managing director, who OFAC said coordinated travel for Mahan Air and is the executive director and 50 percent owner of Shanghai Elite International Travel Co, which also represents Mahan Air in China. In India, OFAC designated Skiez Travels and Logistics Private Limited, and in Russia, Air Cargo Pro Limited, both described as general sales agents for Mahan Air in their respective countries.
“Those who provide financial services, logistics, or commercial support to the IRGC or Mahan Air are helping sustain a terrorist enterprise,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release. “Treasury will continue to identify them, expose them, and cut them off from the U.S. financial system.”
OFAC said DadeNegar Startup Studio, the Iran-based entity named in the action, used a website to solicit locations of American and Israeli military equipment and, in coordination with the IRGC, received strike requests targeting U.S. positions in the Middle East during the ongoing conflict.
The sanctions were issued pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended, which targets terrorist groups and their supporters, and in furtherance of National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, which directs the U.S. government to deny the IRGC access to resources sustaining its activities. Mahan Air itself has been under OFAC sanction since October 2011 for providing support to the IRGC-Qods Force, which was designated in 2007. The IRGC has been separately designated by the State Department under counterproliferation authority since 2007 and by OFAC since 2017.
Treasury said the action advances its broader campaign to intensify economic pressure on Iran and the IRGC in response to attacks on regional states and commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The designations came a day after Treasury announced a separate action, described in its release as disrupting “the Iranian regime’s Strait of Hormuz extortion network,” targeting a different set of entities.
Under the sanctions, all property and interests of the designated parties within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally barred from conducting transactions with them. Foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions on behalf of the designated parties risk losing access to U.S. correspondent banking relationships.
The State Department separately called on “the international community, particularly companies and individuals doing business with Mahan Air or any other sanctioned Iranian carrier, to recognize the serious risks raised by continuing such engagement.”
The action comes amid the broader U.S. military campaign against Iran, which began Feb. 28, and follows a pattern of Treasury and State Department sanctions actions targeting Iranian oil, shipping and military-linked financial networks throughout the conflict.
Neither Mahan Air, DadeNegar Startup Studio, nor the newly designated companies in China, India and Russia have issued a public response to the sanctions.