Under Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, the best SECTREAS since Alexander Hamilton, the Treasury Department has accomplished a lot. Not the least of these accomplishments is Operation Economic Outcast, which daily tightens the financial cords tighter and tighter around Iran. This effort may well be hurting the mullahs and what's left of the Iranian government more than American missiles and bombs.
On Monday, Secretary Bessent described one more action taken under Operation Economic Outcast; this time it was the sanction of a Russian financial institution that gave Mr. Bessent the reason to cut another notch in his metaphorical revolver grips.
Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise. Treasury will not tolerate any support to the regime and will… https://t.co/PGPf8TsDvv
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) September 14, 2026
The secretary writes:
Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise. Treasury will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and isolate Iran’s enablers.
The Treasury Department, on Monday, issued a press release with more details.
Today, under Operation Economic Outcast, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated prominent Russian financial institution, VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank) for its involvement in Iranian sanctions evasion, including establishing correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian banks.
“Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and isolate Iran’s enablers.”
OFAC’s action against VTB Bank is being taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13902, which targets certain sectors of the Iranian economy, including Iran’s financial sector. VTB is now among the most comprehensively sanctioned financial institutions in the world.
That has to sting, and since it's a Russian bank, it stings Putin and the mullahs both, in a sort of two birds, one stone action. Here's what these villains were up to:
VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company (VTB Bank), one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, has opened bank offices in Iran in recent years in order to formalize closer banking coordination with the Iranian regime and expand trade between the two countries. Over the past three years, VTB Bank has established correspondent banking relationships with sanctioned Iranian financial institutions and began taking steps to increase its presence in Tehran in January 2025. VTB Bank has taken steps to move billions of frozen Iranian assets and created a settlement system for national currencies through correspondent accounts in Iranian rials and Russian rubles with the goal of increasing bilateral trade.
Now, it would seem, VTB Bank is out of that business.
These actions, granted, occupy the U.S. Treasury Department in a sort of virtual Whack-A-Mole game. For every financial institution that gets sanctioned by the United States, another will inevitably pop up, especially in places like Russia or China. Both of those countries have been involved in what is effectively money-laundering for China, and both have had banks and financial institutions sanctioned; in both places, new ones will likely spring up.
If I were to bet on the outcome, though, I'd bet on Secretary Bessent every time, and that's for sure and for certain.
This is the second major action by the Treasury announced on Monday; RedState's own Teri Christoph covered the announcement of the next phase of Operation Economic Outcast Monday morning.
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