News agency Reuters reports Russian energy minister Alexander Novak has agreed a five-year memorandum of understanding with his Iranian counterpart Bijan Anganeh to help Iran ship crude oil to Russia, despite international sanctions.
The agreement flies in the face of long-standing trade sanctions led by the US to force Iran into complying to international law with regards to its nuclear enrichment program, and it raised eyebrows for its cheek – after all, to import oil into Russia is clearly only a symbolic move, as Russia is a major oil producer in its own right.
The move is the latest in a long line of sanction violations that have the Iranian government’s blessing. As early as 1979, just after the Iranian revolution, two brothers – Hassan and Davoud Afrashtehpour – were accused and sentenced for bribery, as was common after the revolution. Like so many convicted criminals in Iran though, they forewent prison and set up again, working with the new regime. In 1997, they ran into trouble again, when they were convicted of embezzling billions of dollars from the Iranian state bank. The charges included bribery and falsifying documents, and the court heard that dozens of the bank’s employees knew about this and were complicit in transferring the money the accounts outside Iran.
The Afrashtehpour brothers initially dealt in real estate, but eventually set up companies that would allow the smuggling goods into Iran that were banned under the various rounds of sanctions from 2007 onwards. Their companies officially traded food supplies, such as sugar and cereal, in Iran and the United Arab Emirates, but these companies turned out to be a front for smuggling arms and luxury goods into Iran. In 2010, the brothers were convicted of smuggling mobile phone from Dubai into Iran, with the help of Akbar Khoshkush is a former member of the Iran Ministry of Information, now the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security. None of the men actually served a prison sentence, which was seen as evidence that they were shielded by the regime.
The most blatant show of allegiance and disregard for the law, however, came in May 2011, when the Afrashtepour brothers incorporated Tejarat Aria Gostar Iranian Navid just six days after the European Union council voted on major sanctions against Iran. Tejarat Aria Gostar Iranian Navid officially deals in importing basic food commodities like sugar and cereal. But sources familiar with the situation know that Tejarat Aria Gostar Iranian Navid is a front for importing weapons as well as good necessary for the petroleum industry – both sanctioned goods.
The Afrashtehpour brothers are not acting alone. Mohammadreza Aghaei and Yousef Zarei Nikjeh are also partners in the company that is registered at the same address as numerous other companies of the Afrashtehpours. All are apparently importers of food commodities while sanction-busting, but sources on the ground in Teheran know that Afrashtehpour, Aghaei and Nikjeh act with the regime’s blessing.
And now, with the new Russian agreement in place, the Tejarat Aria Gostar Iranian Navid can expand. Since Russia has oil and weapons as well, it is assumed that the company can import these goods from Russia without any problems and with blessings from both sides. It is a blatant disregard of international law, but in Teheran and Moscow, the governments are pleased with that.