Iran laughs at sanctions and helps other pariahs defy US 'economic fury'

Inside Bank Mellat in Istanbul, the silence is broken only by the sound of three tellers in colourful headscarves, typing and taking phone calls.

- Ruth Michaelson

Near their desks are clocks showing the time in London, Istanbul and Tehran.The Iranian bank sits among sparkling towers in a busy financial district but, as a polite manager explains, it is entirely cut off from the Turkish banking system. He said: "There's no connection because of the embargo."

For as long as Iran's state-owned banks such as Bank Mellat have been the target of US sanctions, they have been adept at evading them. The same goes for the regime as a whole. For decades, it has defied US efforts to collapse Iran's economy. As those efforts intensify under Donald Trump, Tehran is relying on tested defences and some new ones: illicit oil sales, which brought in £35bn last year, most from China; crypto mining by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); and a global banking system that defies its pariah status.

Trump hoped to have brought Iran to its knees before travelling to Beijing this week. That now looks optimistic. Two UK firms have processed more than £750m in crypto payments to Iran, according to digital investigation company TRM Labs, and Bank Mellat, one of Iran's largest, reported a record profit last year. It has been sanctioned by the US for using front companies in the Isle of Man to bypass sanctions, for facilitating funding for the Iranian nuclear programme and for aiding a financial network tied to the IRGC's paramilitary force, the Basij, citing its use of child soldiers.