OFAC designates Iran's Strait of Hormuz insurance scheme, citing payment in digital assets
On 29 July 2026 OFAC designated Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company (PGMIC) and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority — listed in the SDN annex as HORMUZSAFE MARINE SERVICES AUTHORITY, also known as Hormuz Safe — pursuant to Executive Order 13902, for operating in the financial sector of the Iranian economy. In the same action eight shipping companies were designated under the same order on a separate limb, for operating in the petroleum sector, and eight tankers were added to the SDN List as blocked property linked to them. Both insurance entities are recorded with organisation type "Financial and Insurance Activities" and marked subject to secondary sanctions; the Hormuz Safe entry gives an address in Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, and the website hormuzsafe.ir.
Treasury states that Hormuz Safe was developed by Iran’s Ministry of Economy and accepts payment in Bitcoin and other digital assets as part of the regime’s attempts to bypass Western sanctions, and that PGMIC was established by the Central Insurance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the country’s primary insurance regulator, and brokers policies approved by the IRGC-backed Persian Gulf Strait Authority, itself designated on 27 May 2026. Treasury also states that Babak Morteza Zanjani, sanctioned earlier this year, promoted Hormuz Safe to his social-media followers. These are Treasury’s characterisations of the scheme; neither the press release nor the SDN entries sets out the evidence behind them.
On this desk’s reading, what has been designated is a collection point rather than a maritime business: a state-established body that bills a fee for passage through a strait and, on Treasury’s account, takes part of that fee in digital assets. The shape is familiar — an ordinary commercial pretext on the front end, settlement that never touches a correspondent bank on the back end. The operative detail for intermediaries is the secondary-sanctions marking on both SDN entries: exchanges, OTC desks and payment processors outside US jurisdiction now carry exposure for handling flows tied to either entity, not merely US persons.
What the documents do not establish: which chains, addresses or intermediaries Hormuz Safe uses; whether any exchange or stablecoin issuer has frozen related funds; and anything about Zanjani beyond promotion — neither document states ownership, control or any corporate link between him and the designated entities.