Maybe bombing the banker was a bad idea;
The arrest of dozens of IRGC-linked money changers in the United Arab Emirates is one of the most serious blows yet to Tehran’s sanctions-evasion network, laying bare how heavily the Islamic Republic has depended on Dubai as an economic lifeline.
Sources familiar with the matter told Iran International that UAE authorities detained dozens of money changers tied to financial entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, shut down associated companies and closed their offices.
The crackdown follows days of mounting regional tensions and comes after other measures targeting Iranian nationals, including visa revocations and tighter travel restrictions through Dubai.
For years, Dubai has served as Iran’s main offshore financial artery, where oil proceeds, petrochemical revenues and rial conversions were turned into dollars, dirhams and euros beyond the reach of the country’s battered domestic banking system.
“This is going to be a real problem for Tehran because Dubai was an economic lung for the Iranian regime,” Jason Brodsky of United Against Nuclear Iran told Iran International.
“That is economic pressure and diplomatic isolation in a way that the UAE is able to employ against the Iranian regime, and it will have a very considerable impact.”
h/t Instapundit
Was it a crack down, or just a relatively few arrests of minor players to make it appear that they were doing something?
It’s all connected. The UAE needs the Straits of Hormuz to be open. They went so far as to commit their own military assets to that cause. For the UAE it is a MASSIVELY critical trade route. That gives the US leverage to get some housecleaning done within the UAE. And, I’d be very surprised if this arrest of the “money changers” isn’t indirectly connected to Europe and the UK.
If there is circumvention of Iran’s economic sanctions, it is going to be taking place in Dubai through the same financial handlers that are being removed in bulk. I suspect there are a lot of open palms waiting to be greased, and that just got a lot less likely. Those palms are all over the world (EU, UK, Canada, Australia etc.). Just think about which countries were most vociferously against direct action with Iran, and there are your opportunists.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the UAE had a few forensic accountants involved in this operation? I’d like to know where some of the currency change ended up. Whose pockets are getting lined? I think there might be a whole lot of “George Galloway’s” out there. Maybe even closer to home than you might think.
” I think there might be a whole lot of “George Galloway’s” out there.”
O’Butthole comes to mind, and money being sent back to the USA judicial system, to hamper Trump’s agenda!
Obozo in prison stripes would be a dream come true …. Hillary & Billary too!!
‘bombing the banker’
?
soooooo lran was targetting Dubai with terrorist attacks at the same time using their banking faciities?
kinda dumb?
is that what the phraseology eludes to?
some of us dont follow every detail on the topic.
Iran has lobbed well over 400 ballistic missiles into the UAE, including at Dubai.
4-dimensional Islamist strategy.
Iran’s second and third … fouth … and fifth teams weren’t adequately briefed about their money changers in the UAE. Iran has just been flinging missiles and drones at any target provided by Russia. Nope. Nobody left alive who can think this through.
US Treasury announced Jan 15 that money was moving out of Iran and it was being tracked by both the US and Israel.
Tehran leaders wiring huge sums of money out of Iran, US Treasury says | Iran International
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601156396
“What we do at Treasury is we follow the money, whether it is through the banking system or through digital assets. We are going to trace these assets and they will not be able to keep them.”
“Separately, Israel’s Channel 14 reported on Wednesday that Iran’s leaders have transferred $1.5 billion to escrow accounts in Dubai over the past two days…”
“1.5 billion dollars have been transferred out of Iran in the last hours, not through banks but via cryptocurrency with one clear destination: Dubai…”
How many money changers are here and being ignored by the government and FinTRAC?
Everything starts and ends with money.
“Follow the money” might be the aphorism of the human species.
Where did al-Jolani of Syria go the other day, and for what reason? What was the outcome?
Yes, it is connected.