United States federal prosecutors are trying to seize four oil tankers sailing to Venezuela with gasoline supplied by Iran, the latest attempt to sever increasingly close trade ties between the two heavily sanctioned anti-American allies.
The civil forfeiture lawsuit filed Wednesday night in the federal court of the District of Columbia alleges that the sale was arranged by a businessman, Mahmoud Madanipour, with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a foreign terrorist organization designated by U.S.
“The benefits of these activities support the entire spectrum of IRGC’s nefarious activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad. “Prosecutor Zia Faruqui said. alleged in the complaint.
The Associated Press news agency contacted the Iranian mission to the United Nations, but did not receive an immediate response.
The Trump administration has increased pressure on ship owners to comply with sanctions against American adversaries such as Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea.
In May, it issued a notice urging the global maritime industry to look for tactics to evade sanctions such as dangerous ship-to-ship transfers and shut down mandatory tracking devices, both techniques used in recent oil deliveries to and from both Iran and Venezuela.
The campaign seems to be working.
On Thursday, the United States Treasury Department lifted sanctions on eight ships that were recently discovered to be carrying Venezuelan crude.
The move followed an auction on Wednesday of 100,000 barrels of gasoline seized from a Greece-managed ship whose owner suspected the cargo was headed for Venezuela.
As commercial merchants avoid Venezuela, the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro has increasingly turned to Iran.
In May, Maduro celebrated the arrival of five Iranian oil tankers who deliver much-needed fuel supplies to alleviate the shortage that has led to gas lines for several days even in the capital, Caracas, which is normally spared from such difficulties.
The El Palito refinery spews smoke near Puerto Cabello in Venezuela [Ernesto Vargas/AP Photo]
Despite being on top of the world’s largest crude reserves, Venezuela does not produce enough refined gasoline domestically and has seen its total crude production drop to the lowest level in more than 70 years amid the continuing crisis and the consequences of US sanctions.
We are “two rebel nations, two revolutionary nations that will never kneel before US imperialism,” Maduro said at the time. “Venezuela has friends in this world and brave friends in that.”
The arrival of the flotilla angered the Trump administration, which counterattacked by sanctioning the five Iranian captains on the ships.
The four oil tankers named in the complaint filed Wednesday, Bella, Bering, Pandi and Luna, currently transport 1.1 million barrels of gasoline to Venezuela, prosecutors allege.
Of the four, Bella currently sails near the Philippines, ship tracking data shows, while Pandi appears to have shut down its satellite tracking system on June 29 after spending two weeks between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. (UAE). The other two were last seen in May: the Bering near Greece and the Moon sailing between Oman and Iran.
One of the companies involved in the shipment to Venezuela, the Avantgarde Group, was previously linked to the Revolutionary Guard and is trying to evade United States sanctions, according to prosecutors.
An Avantgarde affiliate facilitated the purchase by Grace Revolutionary Guard 1, a ship seized last year by the United Kingdom on US charges that it was transporting oil to Syria.
Iran denied the charges and Grace 1 was eventually released. However, the seizure sparked an international confrontation in which Iran retaliated by seizing a British-flagged ship.
The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, speaks during a meeting with the ministers responsible for the economic sector at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela. [File: Marco Bello/Reuters]
According to the asset loss lawsuit, an unidentified company in February billed Avantgarde for a $ 14.9 million cash payment for the sale of gasoline aboard the Pandi. However, a text message between Mandanipour and an unidentified conspirator suggests that the trip had encountered difficulties.
“The owner of the ship does not want to go because of the US threat, but we want him to go, and we even agreed that we will also buy the ship,” according to the message, the extract of which was included in the complaint.
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