The United States has initiated a civil forfeiture proceeding, seeking to claim $47 million from the sales of Iranian oil, which the government contends was linked to a terrorist organization. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, targets proceeds from the sale of nearly one million barrels of petroleum, allegedly benefiting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Qods Force (IRGC-QF), both designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Unveiled by U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr., along with officials from the Justice Department, FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations, the complaint addresses transactions spanning from 2022 to 2024. Masquerading the origin of the oil as Malaysian, the perpetrators engaged in deceptive practices, manipulating the ship’s tracking systems and presenting falsified documents to sidestep regulations, the forfeiture complaint alleges. Additionally, it is claimed by the Department of Justice in a statement that U.S. dollars paid for storage fees assisted in obscuring the connection to Iranian oil.
The elaborate scheme involved altering the oil tanker’s automatic identification system (AIS) to hide its collection of the oil from an Iranian port and presenting concocted documentation to a Croatian storage facility. Had the involvement with Iranian petroleum been known, U.S. financial institutions involved in transaction processes would have presumably rejected the service.
The government posits that the sale of the petroleum product advances the financial capabilities of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), which has in the past provided material support to the IRGC and IRGC-QF, according to the Justice Department. “Profits from petroleum product sales support the IRGC’s full range of malign activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism, and both domestic and international human rights abuses,” as cited in the Department’s forfeiture complaint. In targeting these funds, the U.S. aims to disrupt the financial mechanisms that, by purchasing weapons of mass destruction, allegedly empower the IRGC’s operations.
The seizure of the $47 million in proceeds from the 2024 sale of the contentious oil underscores the U.S. commitment to stifling financial flows that may contribute to global instability and terrorism. Further legal proceedings will determine the outcome of the forfeiture complaint and its impact on the implicated organizations and financial practices.