Buried under yesterday's @USTreasury Iran sanctions is something not done before. This is the first time khums (the one-fifth levy observant muslims pay on surplus income) is named as a channel the Islamic Republic exploits for sanctions evasion and terror finance. The alert publish by FinCEN didn't hold back saying some collectors act "on behalf of prominent Iranian ayatollahs with ties to the regime or on behalf of the Supreme Leader himself." The U.S. government is asking banks to be on the look out for these flows and report them. In 2024 two men in Texas pleaded guilty to collecting khums on Khamenei's behalf, carrying cash out in amounts under $10,000 to evade detection, and once used 25 pilgrims bound for Iraq to hand-deliver dollars to Iran.