US Sanctions Turkish Istanbul Investment Bank, Cuts Off Iran Oil Payment Channel
The US Treasury has added Istanbul investment bank Golden Global Yatırım Bankası and its two subsidiaries to the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals list, cutting off their US dollar clearing channels.
The three entities belong to the same network: the bank was established in October 2019, with SWIFT code GOGYTRIS; the asset leasing company Golden Global Varlık Kiralama was established in August 2022; and the asset management company Golden Global Portföy Yönetimi was established in January 2025. All three are registered at the same address in Şişli, Istanbul, and have been identified under Executive Order 13902 as operating in Iran's financial sector and engaging in significant transactions.
The US accuses the bank of being set up specifically for Iran's rahbar shadow banking network, transferring oil revenues from China to Turkey, and then converting them into cash and gold through currency dealers. The Treasury stated that it knowingly provided agency banking services to Iranian financial institutions, with transactions running through accounts controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, amounting to tens of millions of dollars.
The named chain includes Turkish businessman Sıtkı Ayan and his companies, who were sanctioned in 2022. At that time, the US indicated that Ayan's network was responsible for transferring hundreds of millions of dollars from oil sales for the Quds Force. This action is part of the "Economic Exile Operation" launched on August 24, which had just restricted Egypt's Banque Misr's branch in the UAE a week prior. The Treasury also issued a general license allowing relevant legal transactions to be concluded by September 19.
Golden Global denies all allegations, stating that the individuals and institutions on the list have never been, nor are they currently, clients, claiming compliance with Turkish and international regulations, and will take legal action against the US measures. The bank is rated as Turkey's 35th largest bank, with an asset share of less than 0.1%, and is a private Islamic investment bank. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that financial institutions will understand the seriousness of the actions in a painful way and indicated that another bank may be targeted next week.
In market mechanisms, this is a sanction-driven cut-off of clearing rights, not normal interbank trading. The US is selling access to dollar channels while buying the risk premium of other small and medium banks for Iranian oil payments; funds are forced back from convertible dollar agency banks to gold, cash, and third-country shell companies. The beneficiaries are clearing banks and compliant investment banks that can still use the dollar system, while the pressured parties are Iranian foreign exchange channels relying on Chinese oil payments, Turkish conversions, and agency banks, as well as any foreign banks continuing to transact with the listed entities.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
This is not the first time Turkey has been used by Washington as a bridge for monetizing Iranian oil. The 2018 Halkbank case turned gold-for-oil and fake food exports into a criminal case, and after the 2022 naming of the Sıtkı Ayan network, the channel shifted from large state-owned banks to investment banks with less than one-thousandth market share. Golden Global was established in 2019, with a leasing company added in 2022 and an asset management company in 2025, aligning with the structural demand following increased sanctions: a license that can open agency bank accounts but is not large enough to be monitored daily by New York clearing banks.
The capital path involves oil renminbi or offshore renminbi entering Chinese teapot refineries, then landing in Turkish accounts under the guise of trade payments, and finally being converted into physical gold and cash by rahbar currency dealers. The Quds Force is not interested in deposits on financial statements but in hard assets that can be taken out of the country and are difficult to freeze. The US is targeting the "last mile banks" this time, not the oil fields themselves; the risk control logic is: cut off the agency banks, and oil payments will stop at points that cannot be dollarized.
Comparable entities include UAE, Hong Kong shell companies, and the previously named Banque Misr's UAE branch. In terms of industry position, Iran's shadow banking has moved from "finding a large bank for help" to a stage of "dispersing to micro-licensed institutions + currency dealers + leasing/asset management subsidiaries." Halkbank is pursuing a settlement, while Golden Global is facing sanctions, indicating that Washington is including small licenses within NATO allies as targets for action.
The structural judgment reflects a shift in pricing power driven by regulatory changes. The mechanism is that dollar clearing rights are treated as a commodity price: whoever can still touch Iranian oil payments must pay the option fee for being secondary sanctioned. Chinese buyers can continue to receive oil, but the cost of monetization rises; Turkish currency dealers take a small margin, banks earn agency fees, and once licenses are SDN-listed, the liquidity premium of the entire chain is re-evaluated at once.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Oil can be sold, but that does not mean oil payments can be turned into usable money.
The smallest licenses often bear the largest bridging functions.
Sanctions target not the assets, but the step of turning assets into dollars.