The United States filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to seize the contents of four oil tankers sailing from Iran and bound for Venezuela. In the filing, the United States alleges that an Iranian businessman affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arranged the fuel deliveries through a network of shell companies in an effort to evade U.S. sanctions. Mahmoud Madanipour used firms in the United Arab Emirates to handle the sales, falsified the fuel's origin, and arranged for the mid-sea ship-to-ship transfers in order to avoid detection. Madanipour also attempted to deliver Iranian oil to China and Malaysia, according to U.S. investigators.