Containing Iran’s Islamic theocracy, especially as it approaches nuclear weapons development, is rightly a top foreign policy priority for the second Trump administration. There’s a strong economic component to the White House’s plan for keeping Teheran on a short leash. While the Biden administration plied the mullahs with cash, Team Trump is returning to its first-term policies to restrict Iran’s adventurism. 

Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out what Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” means regarding economics and trade. As he stated, “Making Iran Broke Again” requires the “collapse [of] Iranian oil exports from the current 1.5-1.6 million barrels per day, back to the trickle they were when President Trump left office.” Bessent said.

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“Iran has developed a complex shadow network of financial facilitators and black-market oil shippers via a ghost fleet to sell oil, petrochemical and other commodities to finance its exports and generate hard currency,” he continued. “As such, we have elevated a sanctions campaign against this export infrastructure, targeting all stages of Iran’s oil supply chain.”

This strategy reflects how Tehran sells its oil on global markets, violating sanctions, through a complex web of black market schemes. Under “maximum pressure,” the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control just stepped up sanctions aimed at Iran’s illicit oil trade, including 22 persons and 13 vessels blocked for involvement in Tehran’s petrochemical exports. 

United States spy agencies are driving this effort with help from allies. Our intelligence community has a clear picture of how Iran is evading sanctions and selling prodigious amounts of oil on global markets. It has had this high-resolution classified view into Tehran’s oil schemes for years. The Biden administration, with its soft spot for the mullahs, didn’t do anything to restrict Iran’s illegal petrochemical games, but the second Trump administration is setting that right. 

How does the intelligence community know so much about Iran’s black market oil trade? Human agents, often controlled by partner spy services in the Middle East; signals intelligence, consisting of intercepted phone calls, texts, and emails; and imagery such as photos from spy satellites, ship movements, and whatnot. Taken together, all this intelligence paints a clear picture of Iran’s illegal petrochemical activities.  

In her New York Post column yesterday, Miranda Devine named one of the firms helping Iran evade oil sanctions. Dubai-based KASCO Group, founded in 1986, asserts that its “primary activities are oil and gas trading, shipping and marine services, transportation and logistics, and real estate development.” 

Spies in more than one country confirm that KASCO is one of the key players in helping Tehran smuggle oil abroad for sale. Oil industry insiders are aware of how Iran illegally sells oil through Iraq. They described a complex multinational operation dedicated to clandestinely getting Tehran’s crude oil to global markets. For instance, KASCO buys oil in Iraq, transports it by trucks and pipes through Iran, and then brings it back to Iraq to ports and ships for delivery worldwide. That “fenced” oil gets distributed globally, including by American and European petrochemical companies.  

One Middle East petrochemical expert explained to me that, in his world, “everybody knows” what Iran is doing with the help of shady firms such as KASCO. For instance, it can be easily detected with a drop in sodium levels in the “Iraqi” oil, proving that it originated in Iran via its petrochemical fingerprint. He added that multiple firms, wittingly or not, are selling blended Iran crude oil in violation of sanctions, including Chevron, Trafigura, Gunvor, Vitol, Onex, Marathon, and Phillips 66. 

It should be noted that the entire Middle Eastern oil industry isn’t complicit in Iran’s illegal operations. Some companies, including Valero, are more cautious about complying with sanctions, according to intelligence sources. Those insiders tell me that KASCO is under investigation by multiple Middle Eastern countries for its role in Iranian sanction evasion.  

There’s nothing new about any of this. For more than a decade before his regime fell to U.S. invasion in 2003, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq developed complex techniques to beat United Nations sanctions to sell Iraqi oil worldwide. This intricate sanctions evasion network netted Baghdad billions of dollars in illicit revenue, much of which went into the coffers of Saddam and his retinue. Dozens of countries assisted Saddam with evading U.N. sanctions, especially Russia and France. Baghdad’s ill-gotten oil wealth was used to bribe many French politicians and businesspeople. For helping Iraq evade sanctions, they got a handsome cut of the illegal oil proceeds.

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We should assume that the same is happening today with Iran. Tehran is evading sanctions, earning billions of dollars illegally, with the help of corrupt firms in the Middle East and around the world. If the Trump administration is serious about turning the financial screws on the mullahs to “Make Iran Broke Again,” tougher sanctions on specific firms and people assisting Tehran represents a good start, but it’s not enough.

There also must be punishment for any Western firms and officials who are profiting illegally, even accepting payoffs, from Iran. Our spies know who they are.  

John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.