22OCT

Treasury names a Hormuz insurance racket

3 min read

19:10UTC

OFAC designated the two bodies selling IRGC-approved transit cover in the Strait of Hormuz, payable in Bitcoin, alongside four shadow-fleet tankers and a front that crowdsourced targeting tips.

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ConflictAssessed

Key takeaway

Tehran collects a Hormuz toll through insurance paperwork, with no gunboat and no signed agreement.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the US Treasury unit that administers American sanctions, designated Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority on Wednesday 29 July under Executive Order 13902⁠¹. The scheme those two bodies run makes cover compulsory: a vessel transiting the Strait of Hormuz must buy IRGC-approved insurance against risks Iran itself creates. HormuzSafe accepts Bitcoin and other digital assets, and the sanctioned financier Babak Zanjani promoted it on social media.

HormuzSafe collects without putting a boarding party on a single deck. No port accepts an uninsured hull and no charterer books one; cargo owners, classification societies and flag states all demand valid cover before a ship moves. Forcing transits to buy Iranian-approved paper therefore extracts payment through the commercial liability chain, at the point where a refusal costs the shipowner the voyage rather than the ship. Washington's answer to a Hormuz toll has been that nobody may charge for passage at all, and this scheme collects without ever putting the question to a negotiator.

OFAC named eight shadow-fleet tankers in the same action, hulls that disguise Iranian crude through flag-of-convenience registration, opaque ownership and ship-to-ship transfers, among them WELL SAIL, LILY, AL SALMI and BREEZE V. That takes Treasury past 100 vessels designated this year⁠². A separate release the following day, under Executive Order 13224, named six targets across China, India, Russia and Iran⁠³.

DadeNegar Startup Studio neither moves cargo nor sells tickets. The IRGC-affiliated front ran a public website soliciting crowdsourced locations of American and Israeli equipment and relayed strike requests to the Guard⁠⁴. Iran has used front companies to procure components for decades, and the Zanjani network drew its own designation on 24 July. Buying targeting information from passers-by is a different function from buying centrifuge parts, and it places anyone who photographed a convoy inside the kill chain.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The US Treasury's sanctions arm, OFAC, added two Iranian shipping insurance companies and eight tankers to its blacklist on 29 July, and an Iranian tech investment firm called DadeNegar Startup Studio the following day. This is part of a long-running effort to stop Iran from selling oil by cutting off the insurance and financial services that let its ships keep operating despite sanctions. The tankers and companies named will struggle to get insurance, dock at most ports, or use the international banking system.

What could happen next?

Consequence
The four newly sanctioned tankers will likely re-flag and seek alternative insurance within weeks, following the pattern of prior 2026 designation rounds.
Meaning
Naming the insurance company directly, rather than only the tankers, targets the mechanism that has let sanctioned vessels keep operating.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: The 2019 OFAC designation of the National Iranian Tanker Company established the template of sanctioning the insurance and shipping-management layer around Iranian oil exports rather than individual vessels, forcing repeated re-flagging cycles that this action against HormuzSafe now extends to the insurance underwriters themselves.

Counter-parallel: Unlike 2019, when NITC's designation measurably reduced Iranian tanker insurability for over a year, the pace of shadow-fleet reconstitution has accelerated through 2026's repeated OFAC rounds (ID:3971, ID:3310), suggesting the substitution network has grown more resilient with practice.

The dual-authority structure, Executive Order 13902 against the insurers and tankers, Executive Order 13224 against DadeNegar Startup Studio, reflects Treasury targeting two distinct financial functions: 13902 covers Iranian petroleum-sector facilitation, while 13224 covers terrorism-financing conduits, meaning DadeNegar is being treated as a financing vehicle rather than a petroleum-trade entity.

Each of the four newly designated shadow-fleet tankers now faces the same re-flagging cost structure prior rounds imposed: loss of P&I cover typically forces a vessel through a chain of shell-company ownership changes lasting four to eight weeks before it can resume port calls under a new flag.

Consensus view: RUSI's Sidharth Kaushal reads the OFAC pairing of Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and HormuzSafe under Executive Order 13902 as targeting the underwriting layer specifically, since shadow-fleet tankers cannot obtain port access or P&I cover in most jurisdictions without a domestic Iranian substitute insurer standing behind the hull.

Counter-view: Tehran's Institute for International Energy Studies argues the designation changes little in practice, pointing to the precedent of the April 2026 OFAC round after which sanctioned tankers simply re-flagged and re-insured through parallel Iranian entities within weeks.

Key tension: Whether targeting the insurance intermediaries themselves, rather than only the tankers, closes the substitution loophole that let prior sanctions rounds be absorbed so quickly.

Sources:US Department of the Treasury·US Department of the Treasury

Mentions:OFAC →Strait of Hormuz →Babak Zanjani →China →US Treasury →Iran →India →Tehran →Russia →Washington →Persian Gulf →RUSI →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company →HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority →Executive Order 13902 →

First Reported In

Update #164 · The pause ends, and the map moves west

US Department of the Treasury· 31 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

OFAC names four in Zanjani network

The earlier Zanjani-network designation (ID:5309) preceded this week's HormuzSafe and Persian Gulf Marine Insurance designations, both tied to Zanjani.

Occurred 24 Jul 2026

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This Event

Treasury names a Hormuz insurance racket

Tehran has found a way to collect a Hormuz toll through commercial liability rather than gunboats, and it works whether or not any diplomatic version of the same demand ever succeeds.

Led to

Treasury goes quiet on Iran for days

OFAC's 29 July designation of HormuzSafe and Persian Gulf Marine Insurance was its last Iran-related action before a four-day gap opened in the sanctions tempo.

Occurred 2 Aug 2026

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OFAC hits Iranian crypto exchanges in Dubai

OFAC expanded its recent Iran sanctions activity from marine insurers to digital-asset businesses.

Occurred 6 Aug 2026

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Different Perspectives

South Korean foreign ministry

Seoul said on 20 October it will withdraw some Kyiv embassy staff, citing no constructive steps from Kyiv since it recalled its ambassador over the disclosure of two North Korean prisoners. A chargé d'affaires and consular staff stay, and Seoul says its aid continues.

Alexander Lukashenko

Lukashenko said on 22 October that talks with the US show progress despite problems, which he said were highlighted with the exchange of political prisoners for the lifting of sanctions. He said Minsk keeps its promises and wants the US to deliver its side in full.

Moldovan government (Daniella Misail-Nichitin)

Moldova has pulled its border guards and customs officers from four crossings on Ukrainian soil after Russian strikes near the border. Interior Minister Daniella Misail-Nichitin said Chisinau is weighing moving Ukrainian checkpoints onto Moldovan territory.

Péter Magyar

Magyar told RTL that Ukrainian maize may cross Hungary in sealed trains bound for Western Europe. He set one condition: the cargo must only transit the country.

Donald Tusk

Tusk said Warsaw would seek an explanation from Kyiv for the drone's route across Poland. He said Poland allows no operations over its territory without its explicit consent.

Mindaugas Sinkevičius

Lithuania's prime minister said the Ukrainian drone that exploded in Pasvalys district on 18 October carried explosives and entered from Poland through the Schengen zone. Earlier drones over Lithuania had come from Belarus, not through allied airspace.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.