ERBIL () - US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a worldwide call for whistleblowers on Tuesday urging anyone with information about financial networks enabling Iran's sanctions evasion to come forward, promising financial awards to tipsters anywhere in the world regardless of their location or employer, as part of Operation Economic Outcast's escalating campaign to sever every remaining financial lifeline to the Islamic Republic.
"Treasury launched Operation Economic Outcast to cut off all financial lifelines to the Iranian regime and its enablers. That's why I issued a new call for whistleblowers to come forward with tips about those who facilitate Iran's terror,"Bessent wrote on X on Tuesday.
The Treasury Secretary made the scope of the appeal explicitly global.
"To anyone worldwide with information on these lifelines: This is your chance. If you have actionable information for Treasury, you may be eligible for an award, no matter where you live or who signs your paycheck. If you see something, say something,"
he said.
The whistleblower call represents a significant expansion of Operation Economic Outcast's intelligence-gathering architecture. Rather than relying solely on US government intelligence agencies, financial regulators, and law enforcement to identify Iranian sanctions evasion networks, Bessent is now explicitly recruiting private citizens, financial sector employees, shipping industry workers, and anyone else worldwide who may have direct knowledge of how Iran is moving money, oil revenues, and financial assets through the global system in ways that evade American sanctions.
The appeal is particularly directed at individuals who work inside the institutions and networks that are facilitating Iranian sanctions evasion, including bank employees, cryptocurrency exchange operators, shipping company personnel, oil traders, and financial intermediaries in countries including China, the UAE, Türkiye, Hong Kong, and Singapore, all of which have been identified in previous Operation Economic Outcast enforcement actions as jurisdictions where Iranian shadow financial networks operate.
The Justice Department disclosed on Monday that Iran had used a Chinese cryptocurrency network to launder $1.5 billion in oil revenues, filing a forfeiture action to seize $61 million in proceeds, the most significant single disclosure yet of Iran's digital financial evasion infrastructure. The Treasury simultaneously sanctioned Golden Global Bank in Türkiye for facilitating tens of millions in IRGC Quds Force transactions and targeted Banque Misr UAE for processing $1.8 billion for Iranian shadow banking networks. Bessent's whistleblower call on Tuesday signals that Washington believes there is significantly more information available about Iranian financial networks than its own intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been able to surface independently.
The existing FinCEN whistleblower incentive programme, referenced in previous Treasury sanctions actions, already allows individuals located in the United States or abroad who provide information about sanctions violations to be eligible for awards if the information leads to a successful enforcement action resulting in monetary penalties exceeding one million dollars. Bessent's Tuesday call appears to be actively publicizing and expanding awareness of that existing mechanism at a moment when Operation Economic Outcast is accelerating its weekly enforcement pace.
