Iran used the UK’s two largest banks, Santander and Lloyds, to secretly move money around the world as part of a vast sanctions-evasion scheme.
Source:https://www.ft.com/content/aac08cf4-a6f2-4e39-995f-23f7fa5ea5ea?sharetype=blocked
Lloyds and Santander UK provided accounts to British shell companies secretly owned by a sanctioned Iranian petrochemical company based near Buckingham Palace. The US accuses the company of collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and collaborating with Russian intelligence agencies to raise money for Iranian proxy militias. PCC and its UK subsidiary PCC UK have been under US sanctions since November 2018.
Documents, emails and accounting records indicate the continued operation of the UK arm of the PCC from an office in Grosvenor Gardens in Belgravia through a complex network of front organizations in the UK and other countries.