Justice Department Announces Terrorism and Sanctions-Evasion Charges and Seizures Linked to Illicit, Billion-Dollar Global Oil Trafficking Network That Finances Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Its Malign Activities

The Justice Department today announced the unsealing of three federal cases, across two U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, as the most recent in a series of efforts to combat the illicit trafficking of Iranian oil that funds Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), and its Qods Force (IRGC-QF), Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and providing lethal support to terrorist organizations abroad.

In the Southern District of New York, seven defendants, including a leader within Iran’s IRGC and officers of a Turkish energy group, are charged with terrorism, sanctions-evasion, fraud, and money laundering offenses in connection with their trafficking and selling of Iranian oil to government-affiliated buyers in China, Russia, and Syria, in order to finance the IRGC-QF. Additionally, the United States seized $108 million used as part of these defendants’ scheme 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 offenses in connection with the trafficking and selling of Iranian oil to Chinese government-owned refineries. Additionally, in the District of Columbia, a forfeiture complaint for the seizure of illicit Iranian oil was unsealed, alleging that more than 500,000 barrels of Iranian fuel is forfeitable under terrorism laws as property that provides a source of funding to the IRGC and IRGC-QF.

Read more: Department of Justice