HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority

HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority is the payment-facing half of Iran's mandatory Hormuz transit-insurance scheme, working alongside Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company, which underwrites the cover, and the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which approves the policies both rely on. Its use of digital-asset payment sets it apart from conventional maritime insurers, which settle premiums in dollars through correspondent banks.

That crypto-payment channel is itself a sanctions-evasion tool: it lets shipowners and Iranian counterparties settle Hormuz insurance premiums without the transaction passing through dollar-clearing infrastructure Treasury can monitor or block. The authority's association with financier Babak Zanjani, already the subject of an expanded July 2026 sanctions network, places it inside a wider pattern of Iranian entities using digital assets specifically to route around dollar-based enforcement.