The US Treasury Department has blacklisted several ships in a new round of sanctions, including four VLGCs whose owner is accused of aiding Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The sanctions against the VLGCs came as the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also targeted other LPG carriers, a tanker, their owners and a captain for their connection to Houthi financial official Sa’id al-Jamal.
The US has dubbed both Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis as Iranian-backed terrorist groups.
The US Treasury’s acting under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Bradley Smith, said the latest sanctions action is aimed at disrupting Iran’s main source of funding for its proxies.
“Our message is clear: those who seek to finance these groups’ destabilising activities will be held to account,” he said in a statement.
The new Hezbollah sanctions targeted four LPG carriers in the fleet of Hong Kong-based Kai Heng Long Global Energy, which was also placed on the blacklist.
The 78,500-cbm Fengshun (built 1991), 84,300-cbm Victoria (built 1996), 78,500-cbm Lady Liberty (built 1993) and 77,700-cbm Parvati (built 1987) have all shipped Iranian LPG, officials said.
And they said that Kai Heng, which could not be reached for comment for this story, is the manager, operator and registered owner of all four.
Hezbollah ‘front’ company
The US Treasury said the Fengshun, which is flagged in the African kingdom of Eswatini, and the Sao Tome and Principe-registered Victoria together carried tens of millions of dollars of LPG from Iran to China for the Hezbollah-controlled Talaqi Group.
The Fengshun started the voyage before transferring the cargo off Singapore to the Victoria, which delivered it to China.
US officials accuse the Talaqi Group, which could not be reached for comment, of being part of the Hezbollah official Muhammad Qasim al-Bazzal’s network of front companies.
The companies allow “Lebanese Hizballah to move and sell Iranian petroleum products and other commodities” for a profit, the department said, using an alternative spelling for Hezbollah.
The Lady Liberty is registered in Sao Tome, while the Parvati flies the Panamanian flag.
The US Treasury’s moves against the Houthis targeted vessels for moving Iranian oil and LPG cargoes to Yemen and the United Arab Emirates on behalf of al-Jamal’s network.
Al-Jamal is accused of running a shipping and trading network with the backing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force that has helped finance the Houthis attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and beyond.
Among the targets of Thursday’s actions against al-Jamal’s network are two LPG carriers accused of carrying cargoes for the Houthi financier.
The 5,900-cbm LPG Om (built 1998) was slapped on the sanctions blacklist alongside its owner, Marshall Islands-registered KDS Shipping, which could not be reached for comment for this story.
The vessel is accused of moving multiple shipments for al-Jamal.
After original publication of this story, the database by shipbroker Clarksons was updated to show the ship’s controlling company as “unknown”.
Meanwhile, US Treasury agency Ofac also said it sanctioned the 78,500-cbm Raha Gasa (built 1990), which it said has shipped millions of dollars of LPG that was “falsely identified as having loaded in the UAE to Yemen” on behalf of the Houthi financier.
The Palau-flagged VLGC’s owner, Marshall Islands-registered Arafat Shipping, was also blacklisted.
Captain named
The Raha Gas’ captain, Arif Ibrahim Khot, was also placed on the list, as was UAE-based ONX Trading, which the US Treasury said is Houthi-affiliated and facilitated illicit payments in connection with al-Jamal’s network. None could be reached for comment.
The US Treasury also sanctioned the 45,000-dwt chemical and product tanker Divine Power (built 2000).
Owned and operated by Marshall Islands registered DP Shipping, which was also placed on the blacklist and could not be reached for this story, the vessel is accused of moving millions of dollars worth of fuel oil to the UAE for al-Jamal’s network.
The US Treasury said that it carried out a cargo transfer with the already blacklisted 151,000-dwt Mehle (built 1999).
It also added Malaysia-based Transmarine Navigation for providing forged documents for a sanctioned vessel showing that it carried Malaysian commodities, masking their Iranian origin.
UAE-based KFD General Trading also found itself on the sanctions list, with the US Treasury alleging that the company helped arrange a shipment of Iranian commodities to China for al-Jamal.
Neither company could be reached for comment.
This story was amended since publication to reflect that the Clarksons database was updated to show the LPG Om’s controlling company is unknown.
