U.S. seizes millions,
disrupts purchase of oil tanker in move targeting Iran’s elite Quds Force
The Iranian oil tanker Grace 1
was seized in July by Gibraltar authorities and British Royal Marines on
suspicion it was delivering Iranian oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
U.S. authorities have now moved to seize $12 million from the disrupted sale of
another tanker in a move aimed at the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps. (A Carrasco Ragel/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
By
Spencer S. Hsu
May 1, 2020 at 11:24 p.m. GMT+2
U.S.
authorities on Thursday charged two Iranian men and seized $12 million used to
purchase a now-detained Liberian-flagged oil tanker, calling it the largest
seizure to date of funds used to support the elite Quds Force of Iran’s hard-line Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps.
Prosecutors
allege the men were part of a scheme that channeled money through the United
States to buy the tanker in a conspiracy that supported the IRGC, which the
U.S. government designated a foreign terrorist
organization last
year.
Federal
prosecutors in Washington unsealed export and sanctions violations charges
against alleged ship-buyer Amir Dianat, 55. Treasury officials say he is a
longtime associate of senior Iranian and Quds Force officials, including a
former Iranian oil minister. Prosecutors also charged Dianat’s alleged business
associate, Kamran Ali Lajmiri, 42.
The
government filed a forfeiture action to claim money used to purchase the
Nautic, a 900-foot-long tanker that was previously named the Gulf Sky, and is
now detained in the Gulf of Oman.
Simultaneously,
the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced
sanctions against Dianat, also known as Ameer Abdulazeez Jaafar Almthaje, and a
related company, Taif Mining Services LLC, for allegedly buying the tanker,
generating revenue and smuggling weapons abroad.
The American actions targeting
the Quds Force raised the latest prospect of Iranian reprisals since tensions
spiked in January, when a U.S. drone strike killed the IRGC’s chief
military strategist, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Afterward, Iran launched
retaliatory strikes against American bases in Iraq and accidentally shot
down a civilian passenger jet.
Alireza
Miryousefi, the spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations, said, “At a
time of coronavirus pandemic crisis, when the US government should
be concerned with helping and save its citizens, it instead engages in
bullying, economic terrorism, and bringing false charges against the Iranian
people. It should be ashamed.”
He added,
“These frustrated actions will not change any strategic calculations of Iran.”
The tanker struggle also echoed
a standoff last summer, when British authorities seized the Grace 1, an
Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar, alleging it was carrying oil to Syria in
violation of a European Union embargo. Iran soon detained a
British-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, in the Strait of Hormuz.
Gibraltar ultimately released
the ship in August, despite a last-minute request by the same federal
prosecutor’s office in Washington to permit the United States to seize the
ship, its oil, and $1 million alleging U.S. sanctions violations.
This time, Nautic’s seller has persuaded a civil court in
the United Arab Emirates to seize the ship pending a hearing Monday, alleging
it never received payment. An unidentified American bank froze funds used to
make payment in October, when the money passed through the U.S. banking system.
An attorney for the ship’s
seller, Polembros Shipping Ltd. of Greece, said the firm has been cooperating
fully with U.S. prosecutors since learning funds from the brokered sale had
been frozen.
“Polembros Shipping had no idea
that its counterparties in this deal were engaging in the conduct set forth in
the complaint filed today, and if they had any idea, they never would have done
business with these people,” said attorney Michael M. Fay of New York City.
In a statement, U.S. Treasury
Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said, “The Iranian regime and its supporters
continue to prioritize the funding of international terrorist organizations
over the health and well-being of the Iranian people,” who are grappling with a
collapse in oil prices, the impact of western sanctions, and the coronavirus
pandemic.
According to the Treasury
Department, Dianat is an associate of Quds Force officials — a trading company
owner and Iran’s former oil minister — and allegedly supported Quds Force
smuggling operations, including efforts aimed to ship weapons and missiles.
U.S. authorities said the force
relied on Dianat to secure entry for vessels and facilitate logistics,
including for shipments from Iran to Yemen. Prosecutors alleged Dianat used a
front company to purchase the Nautic, through intermediaries — including a
Japanese agent who claimed no ties to Iran and no exposure to western
sanctions.
Investigators were tracking the
alleged illicit transactions, although at no time were U.S. financial
institutions alerted that they were financing the purchase of an Iranian oil
tanker, according to the office of Timothy Shea, the U.S. attorney for D.C.
However, Taif allegedly took possession of the tanker,
sent it to Kharg Island, Iran, and loaded it with Iranian crude oil in
coordination with the National Iranian Oil Company before it was subsequently
seized.
U.S. officials have tightened
sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, a mainstay of its economy, saying the
Revolutionary Guard and its major holdings have extensive interests in it and
use the profits to support terrorism, proliferations of weapons of mass
destruction and human rights abuses.
“This is yet another example of
Iran brazenly using front companies and false documentation in an attempt to
hide the illegal transactions that the Iranian regime desperately needs to fund
its malign activities,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John
C. Demers said in a statement.
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