US Announces Charges and Seizures Linked to Billion-Dollar Iranian Oil Trafficking Network

The Justice Department has unsealed three federal cases targeting the illicit trafficking of Iranian oil to finance Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Qods Force, with charges including terrorism, sanctions-evasion, fraud, and money laundering. Seven defendants in the Southern District of New York, including an IRGC leader and officers of a Turkish energy group, are charged with trafficking and selling Iranian oil to government-affiliated buyers in China, Russia, and Syria, with the U.S. seizing $108 million used to fund the IRGC-QF. In a related action in the District of Columbia, a Chinese woman and Omani man are charged with sanctions-evasion and money laundering in connection with selling Iranian oil to Chinese government-owned refineries. Additionally, a civil forfeiture complaint was unsealed in the District of Columbia, alleging that over 500,000 barrels of Iranian fuel oil valued at over $25 million is forfeitable under terrorism laws as property that provides a source of funds to the IRGC and IRGC-QF.