They are abandoning ship: US records Iranian leadership withdrawing tens of millions of dollars from country

The United States has recorded the withdrawal of tens of millions of dollars by Iranian officials. The process began in late December, amid growing anti-government protests.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made the statement in an interview with Newsmax, Clash Report reports.

According to him, the United States is putting maximum pressure on Iranian oil exports in order to cut off the sources of funding for the current ayatollah regime in the country.

"And last month we witnessed the complete financial collapse of the regime. We see banks going out of business. We see inflation. We see a shortage of hard currency," Bessent said.

He added that the Iranian leadership takes tens of millions of dollars out of the country. This is often done by smuggling.

In early January, some media outlets wrote that amid growing protests, military transport aircraft Il-76 of the aggressor country russia began to fly to Iran en masse. It was assumed that they could be involved in supplying weapons to the Iranian military or assisting the Iranian leadership in exporting gold and money.

And the day before, Israeli media reported that about USD 1.5 billion had been taken out of Iran in the last two days alone. At the same time, the withdrawal of funds from the country was carried out not through banks, but with the help of cryptocurrency.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, yesterday, January 15, the American news channel NewsNation reported, citing sources, that the United States is redeploying an aircraft carrier group from the South China Sea to the Middle East.

Also yesterday, Reuters reported that the US military may launch a military operation against Iran within the next day.

According to NBC News, the United States evacuated some of the personnel from the Al Udeid air base in Qatar. The Americans acted similarly before the June 2025 strikes on Iran.