[Daily Beast] Vahid Alaghband's firm did business with an Iranian airline accused of shipping guns and troops to Syria.
An Iranian businessman accused by the U.S. government of violating sanctions on Tehran donated money to the Clinton Foundation, The Daily Beast has confirmed.
Vahid Alaghband's Balli Aviation Ltd., a London-based subsidiary of the commodities trading firm Balli Group PLC, tried to sell 747 airplanes to Iran, despite a federal ban on such sales. The company pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal information in 2010. In its plea agreement with the Department of Justice, Balli Aviation agreed to pay a $2 million criminal fine, serve five years corporate probation, and pay an additional $15 million in civil fines. The hefty sum was "a direct consequence of the level of deception used to mislead investigators," Thomas Madigan, a top Justice Department official, said at the time.
Alaghband is one of an array of questionable actors who've been found in recent months to give to the Clinton Foundation. The gifts -- from foreign governments with human rights violations like Qatar, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and China as well as FIFA, soccer's corrupt governing body -- have complicated Hillary Clinton's campaign for president and raised questions as to whether these entities were trying to curry favor with the former Secretary of State.
Not much publically available on the Balli Group PLC or it's leadership. Strange, very strange. |