The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has confirmed the seizure in April of a tanker carrying what it said was “contraband crude” from Iran.
Suez Rajan Ltd. by Empire Navigation Inc. was transporting a “multi-billion dollar shipment” of 980,000 barrels from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a security force designated by Washington as a terrorist organization, the DOJ said in a press release. opens on Friday The operator is based in Athens, Greece.
“This is the first criminal resolution involving a company that violated sanctions by facilitating the illicit sale and transport of Iranian oil,” the media release said.
The Associated Press previously reported that the shipping company had pleaded guilty to smuggling Iranian oil and agreed to pay $2.4 million. Empire Navigation faces three years of probation under the plea deal, he said Thursday, citing court documents he had seen. The District of Columbia Court’s website shows the case, which had a filing date of Aug. 30, has been opened but has not yet been shown publicly.
“Newly unsealed court documents rely on satellite imagery, as well as documents, to show that the Suez Rajan tried to mask its cargo of Iranian crude from one tanker by trying to claim that the oil came from another ” wrote The Associated Press. .
The DOJ’s account of the case said: “In addition, pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement and forfeiture order issued by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Empire Navigation, the operating company of the vessel that carried the contraband cargo, agreed to cooperate and transport Iranian oil to the United States, an operation that has since concluded.
“Empire Navigation incurred the significant expenses associated with the vessel’s voyage to the United States.”
The DOJ added that the oil shipment is now the subject of a civil forfeiture suit in the same court. “The U.S. forfeiture complaint alleges that the oil aboard the vessel is subject to forfeiture based on U.S. terrorism and money laundering statutes,” he said.
In addition to Empire Navigation, “various entities affiliated with the IRGC of Iran and the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF)” participated in the scheme to covertly sell the oil to a customer in the foreign, the DOJ said citing the seizure complaint, without naming the country of destination. .
“Participants in the scheme attempted to disguise the origin of the oil through ship-to-ship transfers, false automatic identification system reports, falsified documents and other means,” the DOJ said. “The complaint also alleges that the vessel’s lessor used the US financial system to facilitate the transportation of Iranian oil.
“The complaint further alleges that oil constitutes property of, or constitutes a ‘source of influence’ over, the IRGC and IRGC-QF, both designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations, and that oil facilitated money laundering The documents allege that profits from the sale of oil support the full range of the IRGC’s malign activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and its means of delivery, support for terrorism and abuses of human rights both domestically and internationally”.
The US Treasury has said the smuggled oil supported the Quds Force and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.
Empire Navigation did not respond to a request for comment sent by Rigzone over the weekend.
Iranian state media The Islamic Republic News Agency reported on September 10: “Newly declassified court documents publicly confirm that the US government has stolen nearly a million barrels of Iranian crude oil from the M/T tanker Suez Rajan.
“The seizure is at the center of a shadowy conflict unfolding in the world’s ocean shipping corridors as the US tries to use economic sanctions to block the export of oil to Iran. The US and its allies have been stealing cargo of Iranian oil since withdrawing from the nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and reimposing sanctions on Iran in 2018.”
The US non-partisan organization United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) began reporting on Suez Rajan’s transport of Iranian oil last year.
“The oil was destined for buyers in China prior to UANI’s discovery and public intervention, which effectively stranded the cargo and denied Iran the expected revenue from this oil smuggling operation,” UANI said in an update on February 15, 2023.
Suez Rajan and the vessel Virgo that first transported the oil prior to a ship-to-ship transfer used a number of deceptive practices to conceal the origin of the shipment, including manipulating data from the automatic identification system, UANI said in its reports.
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