DOJ Seeks $47M Forfeiture From Alleged Sale of Iranian Oil
DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 26 looking to collect $47 million in proceeds from the sale of nearly "one million barrels of Iranian petroleum," claiming the money is property of, or "affording a person a source of influence over," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its Qods Force, DOJ announced.
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The complaint points to an alleged scheme between 2022 and 2024 to "facilitate the shipment, storage, and sale of Iranian petroleum product for the benefit of the IRGC and IRGC-QF." Facilitators of the scheme allegedly used "deceptive practices" to claim the Iranian oil as being from Malaysia, including by "manipulating the tanker’s automatic identification system" to hide the fact that the oil was onboarded in Iran. DOJ alleged that the perpetrators gave a Croatian storage and port facility falsified documents that claimed the oil was from Malaysia.
The complaint alleges that the petroleum product is the property of the National Iranian Oil Co., which has committed an act of terrorism by supporting the IRGC and IRGC-QF, both of which are designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations.