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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran executes billionaire businessman for part in state bank scam

2014-05-27

A billionaire businessman has been executed in Iran for his part in a $2.6 billion state bank scam following the largest fraud case since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, also known as Amir Mansour Aria, was put to death at Evin prison, just north of the capital, Tehran, according to Iran's state television. The execution came after Iran's Supreme Court upheld his death sentence, but Khosravi's lawyer, Gholam Ali Riahi, claimed it was done in secret, and he was not given any notice his client's death. The fraud involved using forged documents to get credit at one of Iran's top financial institutions, Bank Saderat, and dated back to 2007. The credit was then used to purchase assets including state-owned companies such as major steel producer Khuzestan Steel Company. According to Iranian media reports, the bank fraud began in 2007. A total of 39 defendants were convicted in the case. Four received death sentences, two got life sentences and the rest received sentences of up to 25 years in prison. The trials raised questions about corruption at senior levels in Iran's tightly controlled economy during the administration of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mahmoud Reza Khavari, a former head of Bank Melli, another major Iranian bank, escaped to Canada in 2011 after he resigned over the case. He faces charges over the case in Iran and remains on the Islamic Republic's wanted list. Khavari previously admitted that his bank partially was involved in the fraud, but has maintained his innocence.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

EU to re-impose Iran sanctions quashed by court

2013-11-16

The European Union will re-impose asset freezes on several Iranian companies, annulled this year by court order, even as world powers appear close to a breakthrough deal with Tehran over its contested nuclear programme, Reuters reported. EU diplomats said the move was to re-establish sanctions already imposed, rather than increasing pressure on Iran. Any new sanctions could risk scuppering a deal that global powers hope to reach with Iran at talks that start next Wednesday. The EU decision, taken by senior officials on Thursday, must still be approved by EU governments later this week, diplomats told Reuters. It covers Persia International Bank, Export Development Bank of Iran and Bank Refah Karagan, among others. It aims to counter mounting litigation by hundreds of people and companies from Iran after several legal challenges succeeded in quashing sanctions this year. It is the first time the EU has sought to address legal challenges by imposing new measures against previously listed targets, instead of trying to win appeals, and reflects growing concern that sanctions can be difficult to defend in court. "We are maintaining the current sanctions regime, not broadening it. The relistings amount to keeping the current system," one EU diplomat told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. In striking down sanctions, Europe's second-highest court has said EU governments have failed to provide sufficient evidence to link targeted companies with Tehran's nuclear work. Because it only looks, quacks, walks, and has feathers like a duck... The EU has in the past appealed against sanctions being quashed, for example after the court overturned sanctions on Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat, among the biggest private banks in Iran, earlier this year. Diplomats now say a growing body of litigation makes it difficult to find legal bases for appeals. They say it is impossible to provide detailed proof of the targeted companies' links to Iran's atomic programme because doing so could expose confidential intelligence.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lawfare: Beirut Banks Funneling Illicit Funds For Iran, Hezbollah

2012-07-04

Investigators claim Hezbollah using Leb's banks in large scale money-laundering scheme; US activists call on firms to dump Lebanese debt, securities. In a move that could destabilize Beirut's financial position, a US pressure group urged international financial firms on Tuesday to ditch Lebanese debt and securities, saying that Hezbollah is using Leb's banks in a large scale money-laundering scheme that is also helping Iran evade banking sanctions. New York-based United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) made public the results of a three-month, confidential investigation into the influence of Iran and Hezbollah on Leb's banking system and its sovereign bond market. The group says Leb's financial system -- including Banque du Liban, the country's central bank -- is being used to funnel massive amounts of illicit cash from Hezbollah and its state sponsor, Iran. Leb's banks then use the laundered money to buy Lebanese sovereign debt, which has the effect of making the country appear far more financially stable than it actually is, UANI claims. In a recent letter to Banque du Liban's governor, Riad T. Salame, UANI CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace said Leb had become a "sovereign money-laundering jurisdiction that receives massive inflows of illicit deposits from Hezbollah terror and criminal activities." Wallace accused Leb of using the massive amounts of illicit funding to create a false picture to global markets of economic stability, particularly regarding Lebanese sovereign bonds and credit default swaps. "In fact, the real picture of Leb and its sovereign backed securities reveals a fraud and market manipulation that is used by Hezbollah, Banque du Liban and the Lebanese banking system to continue money laundering on a massive scale," he added. The massive funds came from Hezbollah's criminal activities and some also came from Syria, according to UANI. Wallace said that the large majority of the illegal funds were laundered into the Lebanese banking system by front companies, Hezbollah supporters and Hezbollah Bayt al-Mal '("House of Money"), a Hezbollah-controlled organization that carries out financial services for the terror group. Iran also transacts funds through the Lebanese banking system to evade the effects of international sanctions, including the banking embargo, Wallace added. He told Salame that Teheran was directing increasing support to Hezbollah to evade sanctions pressure by ensuring its proxy's stability. Iran's support for Hezbollah is widely known. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah publicly announced in a February speech that the Islamic Theocratic Republic supports the terror group. In May, a US court ordered Iran to pay $44.6 million in damages to victims of Hezbollah's 1983 US Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, after ruling that the Lebanese terror group carried out the attack with massive technological and material support from Iran. FBI experts testified that at the time of the attack, the PETN explosives used in the bomb were only manufactured in bulk form in Iran. Earlier this year, Salame told Wallace that the Lebanese Central Bank does not have any relationship with Iran's Central Bank, Bank Markazi, and that there is only one Iranian bank, Bank Saderat Iran, in Leb. According to the US Treasury Department, which in 2007 designated Bank Saderat as a terror supporter, Iran uses the bank to transfer millions of dollars to several terror groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... UANI say they have also written to Lebanese bondholders and international bond credit agencies, calling on the latter to issue a "no rating" for Leb. Lebanese sovereign debt is currently rated by Standard and Poor's as B (highly speculative). Four financial firms -- Austrian Erste-Sparinvest, Finnish bank Aktia, US-based Eaton Vance and Ameriprise Financial -- have already divested from Lebanese debt securities, according to UANI. UANI has also called for the US Treasury to designate Leb as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern under the Patriot Act, as it has previously done with Iran. UANI's accusations come days after US officials targeted a Hezbollah-linked drugmoney- laundering network in Colombia. Last Wednesday, the US Treasury named four people and three companies it said are involved in laundering drug trafficking monies for Hezbollah-linked drug kingpin Ayman Joumaa. The Treasury also designated a Colombia- based individual, Ali Mohamad Saleh, as directing Hezbollah's fundraising activities from business owners and residents in the Americas. "The Joumaa network is a sophisticated multi-national money-laundering ring, which launders the proceeds of drug trafficking for the benefit of criminals and the terrorist group Hezbollah," said under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence David S. Cohen.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran denies allegations its banks fund nuclear activity, terror

2008-08-17

Iran on Friday denied accusations by France, Britain and the United States that its banks were involved in illegal nuclear activity and in financing terrorism. The UN Security Council has imposed three sets of limited sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment, including a round in March that introduced financial monitoring of Bank Melli and Bank Saderat. Iran has refused to comply with repeated international demands to halt nuclear enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. The U.S. suspects the program is aimed at making nuclear weapons, but Iran maintains it is for peaceful purposes. Earlier this month, Britain, France and the U.S. argued in a letter to the UN Security Council that Iranian banks were trying to get around sanctions by covertly conducting transactions. Iran rejected the charge in a letter to the Council on Friday, saying Iranian banks have never been involved in any illicit activities... because there no such non-peaceful nuclear activities in Iran.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Tehran: New Iran sanctions 'harm' West

2008-08-10

Iranian Parliamentary Deputy Alaeddin Boroujerdi says imposing new EU sanctions against the Islamic Republic will 'damage' the West. "Any measure by the European Union ahead of the end of talks between Iran and the five Security Council veto holders plus Germany (5+1 Group) will be unacceptable," the Head of the Majlis (Parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, told IRNA Saturday. The EU issued a decree on Friday enacting the imposition of fresh UN Security Council sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. The EU presidency decreed that its financial institutions must exercise 'restraint' on export credits to Iran and that its 27 member states inspect Iran-bound cargoes. It also urged the countries to exercise vigilance in dealing with 'all banks domiciled in Iran, in particular Bank Saderat'. The Iranian MP said that Iran and the EU enjoy a high level of trade and economic cooperation and added that sanctions would have adverse consequence on their positive mutual ties. Boroujerdi called on EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana and the 5+1 Group to hold the second round of talks with Iran to receive a clear response from the Islamic Republic to a package of incentives they have already presented to Tehran calling for a suspension of enrichment activities. The Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Olli Heinonen, held talks in Tehran on Thursday with senior Iranian nuclear officials including Deputy Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) Mohammad Saeedi and Iran's permanent representative to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh. Iran on Tuesday sent a letter to the 5+1 Group (the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council and Germany) demanding additional clarification over their package of proposals and clear answers to its questions. The West accuses Iran of making efforts to develop nuclear arms. Tehran, however, argues its enrichment activities are aimed at electricity generation and further peaceful applications of nuclear technology. Under US pressure, however, the UN Security Council has intervened in Tehran's nuclear case and has so far imposed three rounds of sanctions against the country.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Britain, E.U. Announce Iran Sanctions

2008-06-16

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday announced new sanctions against Iran and a small increase in troops for Afghanistan, handing President Bush a symbolic boost on the last day of his weeklong farewell trip to Europe. Brown, appearing with Bush at a 10 Downing Street news conference, said Britain and the European Union would act later Monday to freeze the assets of Iran's largest bank, Bank Melli, in response to Tehran's refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program. Bush has made Iran's uranium enrichment program a focus of his European swing, and has been encouraging European nations to further pressure the Islamic Republic to curtail its nuclear activities and allow more extensive international inspections. Iran says the program is peaceful, but there is concern that the enriched uranium could also be diverted to nuclear weapons. The British prime minister also said the number of British troops in Afghanistan would be raised to a record level. British officials said after the press conference that the total number of troops would be about 200, added to about 7,800 already in Afghanistan. Brown also strongly rejected reports that he was planning a timetable for rapid withdrawal of the roughly 4,000 British troops that remain in Iraq. The British contingent is stationed on the outskirts of Basra and focused primarily on training Iraqi security forces. British troops withdrew from the center of Basra last year. "In Iraq, there is a job to be done," Brown said. "There's going to be no artificial timetable. And the reason is we're making progress." The United Kingdom is the last stop for Bush on a weeklong trip through Europe, which will include a visit later Monday to Northern Ireland. Along with discussion of Iran and other issues, U.S. officials, including first lady Laura Bush, in recent days helped raise $20 billion in pledges to help rebuild Afghanistan. Monday's announcements from Brown came as good news for Bush, who is entering his final months in office and, like Brown, is struggling with low approval ratings and political opposition at home. It follows a joint statement last week by the United States and the European Union vowing to pursue aggressive financial sanctions against Iran unless the regime in Tehran opens its nuclear program to inspections and agrees to halt uranium enrichment. Iranian leaders effectively rejected a package of incentives offered by the EU's top diplomat over the weekend aimed at securing Tehran's cooperation. European action against Bank Melli comes on top of restrictions imposed in Oct. 2007 when the U.S. Treasury Department froze bank assets and halted transactions as part of a broader package of sanctions against state-owned Iranian financial institutions. Bank Melli allegedly sent $100 million to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from 2002 to 2006, according to Treasury officials. Treasury has also cut off another major Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from the U.S. financial system. "This has been a good trip," President Bush said at the press conference.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lending Dries Up in Iran

2008-01-21

Various industries in Iran are beginning to feel the pinch as bankers around the world have cut back lending to satisfy the U.S. government’s demands. U.S. efforts to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment program stalled in the United Nations, thwarted by Russia and China. But U.S. Treasury officials Stuart Levey and Robert Kimmitt have spearheaded a campaign to curb lending to a country the United States perceives as a global threat. Banks such as UBS AG (UBS), Deutsche Bank AG (DB), and HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC) have taken heed, reducing lending to Iran, and in some cases, cutting it off all together. "We do absolutely no business in Iran," Serge Steiner, a spokesman for UBS, Europe’s biggest bank by market value, told Bloomberg News. Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest financial institution, said in July that it was retreating from Iran as well. "We have sent a letter to private clients in Iran who have an account with Deutsche Bank in Germany, and told them that we have to terminate our business relationship with them," Deutsche Bank spokesman Ronald Weichert said last year. Iran is indeed an oil rich nation. It ships about four million barrels of crude a day and accounts for 5% of global supply. But an unnamed German banking analyst told Forbes that Deutsche Bank’s interest in the Iranian oil business was inconsequential. "I think leaving Iran improves the business opportunities [for Deutsche Bank]," he said. "Iran is a small country. It’s not worth it to deal with Iran and then lose business in the U.S." Six months ago, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cut Iran’s country-risk rating for export credits to the second worst level. It now shares a category with Albania, Bangladesh and Mozambique. The number of banks doing business with Iran has dropped substantially in the past two years. According to Bankers’ Almanac, the number of institutions used by Bank Saderat Iran, one of the country’s largest banks, have fallen from 29 in 2006 to 8. The result of such precautionary measures has been detrimental to Iranian business, which has been deprived of funds necessary to acquire equipment and services. European Union data agency Eurostat reported that machinery and transportation equipment exports to Iran dropped 20% in the first nine months of 2007 from the previous year. Financial institutions are in the midst of a global credit crunch and most are shying away from riskier investments. That doesn’t bode well for Iran, which lacks the technology and equipment to develop its natural resources on its own. Without foreign investment, Iran is an island. "Banks tend to be very, very conservative creatures," Peter Djinis a former member of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network told Bloomberg. Until they hear directly from the U.S. government that Iran can be trusted, "there will not be any wavering."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Designation of Iranian Entities

2007-10-25

...Today, the Department of State designated under Executive Order 13382 two key Iranian entities of proliferation concern: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). Additionally, the Department of the Treasury designated for proliferation activities under E.O. 13382 nine IRGC-affiliated entities and five IRGC-affiliated individuals as derivatives of the IRGC, Iran's state-owned Banks Melli and Mellat, and three individuals affiliated with Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO). The Treasury Department also designated the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) under E.O. 13224 for providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, and Iran's state-owned Bank Saderat as a terrorist financier... (list follows)

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Iran set to open bank in Belarus in 3 months

2007-08-20

(IranMania) - Iranian Minister of commerce expressed hope that the Iranian bank will be inaugurated in Belarus within the next three months, MNA reported. Massud Mirkazemi added that Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI), Bank Saderat Iran, and Bank Refah Kargaran will jointly establish a bank in Belarus. Attending the 8th session of Iran-Belarus Joint Economic Commission, the Belarusian Industry Minister Anatoliy Rusetskiy confirmed the news.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran gets 60 pct of oil income in non-USD

2007-03-23

TEHERAN - Iran, embroiled in a nuclear row with Washington, is asking more clients to pay for oil in currencies other than the dollar and 60 percent or more of its crude income is in other units, an official said on Thursday. Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, international affairs director of state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), told Reuters almost all of Iran’s European clients and some of its Asian customers had accepted making payments in non-dollar currencies. He said Iran, which has pushed for payment in euros and other currencies since September when Washington slapped sanctions on a big Iranian bank, was concerned about the weak state of the greenback and not being prompted by politics. “To the best of my knowledge, what we are doing at NIOC is purely something based on commercial reasons,” he said. “Part (of this) has to do with the strength of the dollar.” Ghanimifard had said in December that about 57 percent of Iran’s income from crude exports was in euros. "We have asked our clients that whenever they are ready to exchange the dollar into any other currency, including the euro, we would be welcoming that. In Europe, almost -- I can say -- all have accepted, in Asian markets some,” he said. Asked how much of Iran’s oil income was now being paid in currencies other than the dollar, he said: “It would be something close to 60 to 60 something percent.” But he said payments were still based on dollar pricing. “Pricing as you know is based on the quotations that we get from the international market and when the international market quotes anything for crude or for the products all of them are for the US dollar,” Ghanimifard said. Iran’s central bank told Reuters in February that Teheran had started pushing for a shift out of dollar oil payments after the United States imposed sanctions on Bank Saderat in September. Washington later imposed sanctions on a second bank. The central bank said the shift in payments had hastened the decline in the dollar portion of Iran’s foreign reserves, which account for less than 30 percent. Iran is expected to earn more than $50 billion from its energy exports in the Iranian year that ended on March 20.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

U.S. Asks Finance Chiefs to Limit Iran’s Access to Banks

2006-09-17

The United States pressed the top finance officials of the world’s leading industrial nations on Saturday to crack down on what Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said was the exploitation of their banking systems by at least 30 Iranian front companies involved in illicit activities. Mr. Paulson said he had told the finance and economic ministers that the front companies were identified by American intelligence agencies as funneling money to terrororist groups using banks in Europe and elsewhere, many of them “blue chip banks.” Mr. Paulson said that many leading trading companies in Iran with legitimate business operations were also involved in the illicit activities, and that it behooved any legitimate bank to realize that it was risky to continue doing even legitimate business with the companies. He called on banks around the world to be “vigilant” in opposing such risks and to avoid “inadvertently facilitating the kinds of activities that they wouldn’t want to facilitate.” “Iran is a country that has broad, deep and commercial relationships with much of the world that have gone on for some time,” Mr. Paulson told reporters here. “This was nothing more than an educational briefing to prepare financial institutions for dealing with some of the risks that are out there.” He said banks around the world also needed to stop doing business with North Korea, but added that North Korea was already almost entirely isolated from the world’s financial system. By contrast, Iran is still a major player globally. The comments appeared to reflect the emerging Bush administration strategy on Iran as efforts to impose sanctions by the United Nations Security Council have faltered. Last week, in what administration officials call a major escalation in the effort to squeeze Iran economically, the Treasury Department announced that Bank Saderat, a major bank in Iran, would no longer have even indirect access to the United States financial system. Banking experts say that the decree means that Iran will have difficulty selling anything for dollars through Bank Saderat, because any commercial exchange that uses dollars normally obtains them from an American bank. Oil in particularly is always traded in dollars. Many banking experts say the administration may make other banks off-limits soon. After the announcement on Bank Saderat, two senior Treasury officials visited Europe to try to persuade regulators and banks to stop doing business with Bank Saderat and any other banks that are alleged to be involved in illicit activities. Some European banks have already curtailed their activities with Iran, but many leading banks have refused.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

US Treasury blacklists Iran's Bank Saderat

2006-09-09

WASHINGTON, Sept 8, 2006 (AFP) - The US Treasury Department announced Friday that it had blacklisted one of Iran's largest banks, Bank Saderat, from having any links with US-owned banks. The move effectively cuts Iran's state-owned Bank Saderat off from conducting any business linked to the US financial system. The Treasury Department said it blacklisted Saderat because of its "support for terrorism." "Bank Saderat facilitates Iran's transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations each year," said Stuart Levey, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. "We will no longer allow a bank like Saderat to do business in the American financial system, even indirectly," Levey said. According to the US Treasury, the bank is one of Iran's largest with some 3,400 branch offices. The Treasury also said the bank had transferred funds to other "terrorist organizations" including Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

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