Evading Sanctions · Full chronicle and history

On November 3, The Wall Street Journal reported that among approximately 3,500 leaked A7 transactions, Chouzhou Bank appeared most frequently as the receiving bank. In February 2025, a Kyrgyz front company ordered 40,000 kilograms of molybdenum trioxide from a Chinese supplier, with a payment of about $1.5 million wired to an account at the bank. Both the Biden and Trump administrations had internally flagged the bank but did not impose sanctions. Chouzhou Bank stated it has launched an internal investigation, while China opposes unilateral U.S. sanctions.

Ukrainian President Zelensky stated in a public address that Putin currently feels a sense of victory in the war by circumventing sanctions, striking diesel trade deals, and making use of Starlink services. Zelensky stressed that these realities must be faced honestly, implying that Western sanctions against Russia and related technical support contain loopholes that have affected the balance of the war.

According to X account @__Inty__, Iran has still shipped out some liquefied petroleum gas and aviation fuel despite a U.S. naval blockade. Since mid-July, at least 8 tankers carrying about 4.1 million barrels of Iranian LPG have left the Gulf of Oman, most heading first to Malaysia, with China the highly likely final destination; another tanker transported Iranian aviation fuel to Myanmar in September.

On September 6, 2026, an investigative report by The New York Times revealed that Inspur Group, a Chinese company under U.S. sanctions, purchased tens of billions of dollars' worth of advanced-process chips and evaded export controls by renaming its Silicon Valley subsidiary and using a transshipment network in Southeast Asia.

The US Treasury Department sanctioned Turkey's Golden Global Bank and its subsidiaries, accusing them of providing money laundering and correspondent banking services for oil trade between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Chinese Communist Party, cutting off Iran's financial lifeline in Turkey.

Iran's executive vice president stated in the media that Iran faces numerous obstacles in evading sanctions and recovering funds from oil exports, and that the country is under a severe blockade.

In June 2025, Zhaoyi Co., Ltd., headed by Shen Tu-cheng, the father of Puma Shen, was sanctioned by the mainland, and was subsequently accused of continuing trade under the names of other companies.

In 2022, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Turkish businessman Sitki Ayan and the network of companies he controls, which had transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in oil sales proceeds for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force and was an upstream link in the business allegedly conducted by Golden Global Bank.