Alabama resident Ray Hunt, also known as Abdolrahman Hantoosh, pleaded guilty to conspiring to illegally export U.S.-origin goods to Iran. Beginning in 2015, Hunt used his company, Vega Tools, to send industrial equipment for Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical industries without proper authorization. Hunt lied to shipping companies about the value of the goods and transshipped them through Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to evade U.S. sanctions.
News Briefs
July 8, 2024
Satellite images showed ongoing construction at Iran’s Modarres military base and Khojir missile production complex, with more than 30 new buildings across the two sites. Many of the buildings are surrounded by large dirt berms, the presence of which typically indicates missile production because the berms are designed to limit damage caused by accidental explosions. Unnamed Iranian officials confirmed that the construction was intended to increase the country's ballistic missile and drone production.
-- Reuters
July 6, 2024
Iran elected reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, a 71-year-old heart surgeon and member of Iran’s parliament, as the new president. Pezeshkian defeated the hardliner Saeed Jalili in a run-off after no candidate secured a majority of votes in the first round.
-- BBC News
June 20, 2024
Iran’s Mahan Air smuggled two Airbus A340 planes, owned by Gambian leasing company Macka Invest, into Iran as they flew from Lithuania to Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The aircraft operators switched off the planes' automatic transponders after entering Iranian airspace, but aviation data shows they landed in Tehran and Chabahar. Authorities at the Lithuanian airport prevented a third Macka Invest airplane, which carried spare parts, from taking off after learning that the first had diverted to Iran.
-- Lithuanian Radio and Television
June 19, 2024
Canada listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, prohibiting financial or material support to the group and allowing asset freezes on the entity.
-- Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty
June 16, 2024
The Houthi rebels in Yemen have continued their attacks on ships in the Red Sea, recently damaging two vessels. The crew of the Greek-owned Tutor abandoned ship after it was struck by a drone boat, the first successful use of this type of weapon by the Houthis. Similarly, the Ukrainian-owned Verbena was abandoned by its crew following Houthi missile strikes. While a U.S.-led naval coalition continues its military operation to degrade the group's capabilities, it continues to find new ways to procure weapons. The Houthis have recently opened a new smuggling route from Iran through Djibouti and have sourced Chinese drone parts from Lebanon.
-- Wall Street Journal
June 14, 2024
Following a formal censure by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors over its nuclear program, Iran began feeding uranium into three new cascades of advanced IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility. It also plans to install 18 more cascades of IR-2m centrifuges at Natanz and eight cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at Fordow.
-- Associated Press
June 6, 2024
Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a new type of solid-fuel missile called “Palestine” at Israel’s Eilat port. The Houthis claimed the weapon was locally made, but its design elements resembled those of missiles developed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including the hypersonic Fattah system.
-- Associated Press
June 5, 2024
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors passed a resolution calling on Iran to increase cooperation with the agency and to reverse the barring of IAEA inspectors. Russia and China voted against the resolution, while twelve other countries abstained.
-- Reuters
June 3, 2024
Whistleblowers allegedly found billions of dollars' worth of previously undetected transactions between UK-based Standard Chartered (StanChart) and Iran-linked entities and terrorist organizations. The transactions happened between 2008 and 2013, after the bank said it would cease business with Iran in 2007. The whistleblowers made their claims in a U.S. federal court filing and highlighted transactions with a front company owned by Mohammad Bazzi, a Hizbollah financier, as well as with a Pakistani fertilizer company that allegedly sold explosive materials to the Taliban. StanChart has already paid more than two billion dollars in penalties for sanctions violations and due diligence failures.
-- Financial Times