Why do Iran’s oil ‘intermediaries’ owe the government billions?

As the United States maintains a naval blockade of Iran’s ports and imposes more sanctions on its oil exports, Tehran is confronting another problem: billions of dollars in revenue from previous oil sales that it says have gone missing. A spokesperson for Iran’s judiciary said in September that a network of oil intermediaries known as “trustees” owed the Iranian government between 10 billion euros ($11bn) and 11 billion euros ($12bn). That figure was equivalent to half of the total oil revenue projected in Iran’s government budget for the current fiscal year. US officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have tied Iran’s struggles to access oil revenues as evidence that its economic pressure campaign is having an effect.