China-based Haokun Energy worked with Turkey-based company Golden Globe Demir Celik (GDCP) and other firms in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to help Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) acquire sodium chlorate and sodium perchlorate used in ballistic missile fuel production, according to hacked documents. Haokun Energy has been an intermediary IRGC oil sales to Chinese refineries and was sanctioned by the United States in 2022 for financing the IRGC’s Quds Force. GDCP is registered in Turkey, but emails from the company were signed by Iranian national Mohammadreza Sadr, who appeared to be Ahmad Mohammadzadeh, a former deputy coordinator of the IRGC Navy and former governor of Bushehr involved in the Pourjafari Headquarters, an IRGC oil sales network. Haokun also established a company called Mosta under the control of GDCP to obtain bank guarantees.

According to the documents, Haokun planned to ship 2,000 tons of sodium chlorate and 10,000 tons of sodium perchlorate to Iran through GDCP in a shipment valued at $43 million, with the volume sufficient to produce solid fuel for roughly 2,500 ballistic missiles. Another document showed GDCP preparing to sell two million barrels of oil from Kharg Island to Fortune Company in the United Arab Emirates. Another recorded a transfer of roughly $3 million in cryptocurrency to GDCP, with a separate document indicating that the funds were deposited into an account at the Borj-e Aseman branch of Tourism Bank in Tehran. Haokun Energy also said it coordinated confidential channels with Chinese customs authorities.