DOJ: Terrorism, Sanctions-Evasion Charges, and Seizures Linked to Billion-Dollar Global Oil Trafficking Network Financing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Its Malign Activities, China Wins

On 02 Feb 24, The U.S. Department of Justice announced “the unsealing of three federal cases, across two U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, as the most recent in a series of efforts to combat the illicit trafficking of Iranian oil that funds Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), and its Qods Force (IRGC-QF), Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and providing lethal support to terrorist organizations abroad.”

Note that the scope and complexity of all of this makes it burdensome to fully comprehend.

Therefore, focus on how primary components are positioned in the following DOJ press release: Iran, IRGC, Qods Turkey [NATO], energy, terrorism, sanctions, fraud, money laundering, oil, “government-affiliated buyers,” China, Russia, Syria, financing the IRGC, U.S., Hamas, Hizballah, DOJ, etc.

Last Friday, DOJ announced this at the end of the week’s “news” cycle:

“In the Southern District of New York, seven defendants, including a leader within Iran’s IRGC and officers of a Turkish energy group, are charged with terrorism, sanctions-evasion, fraud, and money laundering offenses in connection with their trafficking and selling of Iranian oil to government-affiliated buyers in China, Russia, and Syria, in order to finance the IRGC-QF. Additionally, the United States seized $108 million used as part of these defendants’ scheme to fund the IRGC-QF.

In a related action, in the District of Columbia, a Chinese woman and Omani man are charged with sanctions-evasion and money laundering offenses in connection with the trafficking and selling of Iranian oil to Chinese government-owned refineries. Additionally, in the District of Columbia, a forfeiture complaint for the seizure of illicit Iranian oil was unsealed, alleging that more than 500,000 barrels of Iranian fuel is forfeitable under terrorism laws as property that provides a source of funding to the IRGC and IRGC-QF.

“Iran utilizes the proceeds of its black-market oil sales to fund its criminal activities, including its support of the IRGC, Hamas, Hizballah, and other Iranian aligned terrorist groups,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The Justice Department is targeting this funding source by seizing over $108 million and 500,000 barrels of fuel that would otherwise have enabled Iran to further its destabilizing activities that threaten our national security. In addition to disrupting Iran’s unlawful funding streams, the Justice Department has also charged nine individuals for their roles in supporting Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. The Justice Department will continue to use every authority we have to cut off the illegal financing and enabling of Iran’s malicious activities, which have become even more evident in recent months.”

“While Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Qods Force are the regime’s terrorist strongarms, oil is its lifeblood,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “Today’s enforcement actions show that the Justice Department is committed to using every tool – from criminal prosecutions to the lawful seizures of Iranian oil and oil profits – to shut down Iran’s pipeline of petroleum and profits. The charges and seizures announced today strike at the core of the global oil smuggling network that Iran has built to fund its regime of terror and repression, and deny the regime millions of dollars in proceeds to further its nefarious agenda.”

“Iran presents a constant threat to the United States – trying to murder Americans right here within our borders, conducting a cyber-attack on a children’s hospital, supporting terrorists around the world, and more,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “All of Iran’s crimes cost money. And the FBI will remain committed to enforcing U.S. sanctions that keep money out of its coffers.”

“Today’s cases are part of the Department’s ongoing efforts to cut off the flow of black-market Iranian oil that funds the regime’s malign activity, threatening the United States and our interests around the world,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.  “We remain focused on holding accountable those involved in these smuggling schemes, from the officials who oversee the laundering operations, to the network of shadowy businesses that enable them, to the brokers who help facilitate these unlawful transactions.”

SDNY / DOJ

Now ask: What is really going on here?

Are Biden and Garland giving fidelity to prosecution or is this more operational cover-up of RICO crimes relative to the broader scope of Biden corruption, criminality and treason; and where treason is quickly manifesting as World War III?

Here are the answers and evidence for those questions focusing on the primary components: Iran, IRGC, Qods Turkey [NATO], energy, terrorism, sanctions, fraud, money laundering, oil, “government-affiliated buyers,” China, Russia, Syria, financing the IRGC, U.S., Hamas, Hizballah, DOJ, etc..

Analysis about five years old where I examined an 08 Apr 19 White House press release from then President Donald Trump positions this development and frames our lens for understanding.

Trump’s 2019 statement announced his administration’s plan to, “designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

President Trump went on to expand on the historically unprecedented nature of this foreign policy determination,

“This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.  The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign.

This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a FTO.  It underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments.  This action will significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime.  It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC.  If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.”

From May 2020 analysis, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated, “Remember the simple goal. The simple goal is to get Iran to behave like a normal nation: stop blowing up things around the world; stop fomenting terrorism; stop their assassination campaign in Europe; stop underwriting the Houthis, Hamas, Hizballah. Simple things – the same things we ask every nation in the world to do we’re asking of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Trump White House

Several other matters factor into the backstory:

Barack Obama illegally and controversially funded the Iranians relative to the JCPOA and the development of a covert Intelligence Community rogue nuclear arsenal including leveraging Syria as a proxy development location.

Then President Obama made five deliveries of pallets of cash using military aircraft that traveled on four different routes to pay the Iranians at least $33.6 billion in a basket of international currencies.

In May 2015, Obama signed the JCPOA into law and it loosened international nuclear restrictions and sanctions on Iran and permitting it to covertly become nuclear weapons capable.

The net effect was the creation of a rogue nuclear arsenal for the Intelligence Community to whip nation states to desired geopolitical positions and the same template overlays North Korea.

The U.S. and Intelligence Community provide both the funding and the technological capacity.

In 2017 after Obama made Iran a nuclear state, he also granted an exception to the U.S. prohibition of gain of function work [biowarfare] and permitted Anthony Fauci to allocate $3.7 million to China’s Institute of Virology specifically to develop SARS-CoV-2 as a bioweapon.

Importantly and later on in the World War III chronology, a critical distinction became how the U.S. forced mRNA injections onto its military and people and where China did not.

The implications for this relative to what is understood about modern era warfare are terrifying.

In January 2017 and during the last hours of his presidency, Obama sent the Palestinians $221 million meaning that via Hamas et al, Obama at least in-part funded the Iranians and further aggravated matters in Gaza.

Around the same time that Trump abandoned the JCPOA in 2018, Chinese foreign nationals were caught smuggling vials of coronavirus aboard U.S. commercial flights originating out of Detroit and Boston.

The Chinese nationals were conspiring with Harvard University professor Charles Lieber, who was on the CCP’s payroll via its ‘Thousand Talents’ initiative and otherwise.

Lieber’s “prosecution” for his domestic and international terrorism crimes was the patented “process crimes” prosecution cover-up that is standard out of DOJ.

Recall that in 2018, then Secretary of State John Kerry set the Palestinians against Trump in attempt to derail a peace accord in Gaza.

In January 2020 during the sunset of Trump’s presidency, the outgoing administration conducted the assassination of Iranian military general and former commander of Iran’s Qods forces, Qasem Soleimani.

In February 2023, the IC via CIA Director William Burns popped-up on 60 Minutes to put Iran’s nuclear capabilities back on the table of public discussion in the form of pretext.

In August 2023, the Biden Administration negotiated a hostage exchange with Iran that functioned as a funding mechanism where $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues was released as a part of the deal.

“The deal emerged after months of indirect negotiations between U.S. and Iranian officials. As part of the deal, the U.S. also released $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues, transferred from banks in South Korea to Qatar, an energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that is an ally of both nations. The U.S. and Iran have no formal diplomatic relations. The funds are intended to be used for humanitarian purposes only.”

USA Today

At the beginning of October 2023, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley retired giving the appearance of compartmentalizing and flushing of old operations before seating new leadership for the next phase of operations.

Immediately thereafter on 07 Oct 23, Hamas [Iran] executed its attack on Israel to spark new conflict in the Middle East and where Iran aided its proxy Hamas in designing the attack.

This attack rekindled the Middle East theater [Iran, Iraq, Syria, et al.] relative to the other two WWIII theaters [RSA/UKR, CHN/TWN/SoCHNSea].

This all delivers a status quo of war and terrorism, just the way the IC likes it because they grease the skids of slavery.

Recall that for decades, Iran has been the world’s leading exporter of international terrorism and.

Overlay this fact with the recent uptick in MSM pretext reporting about two things: 1-terrorist attacks on U.S. soil almost certainly designed to impact or intercede on the 2024 election and 2-the outbreak of World War III on the same relative timeline.

Just days ago, President Trump said this,

I believe we’re going to have a terrorist attack, 100%, 100%.”

President Donald J. Trump

Trump then stated in response to questions about military aged fighting males crossing the southern border, the former President confirmed that it’s occurring by the direction of the CCP saying, “I believe so.”

Take that entire substantial fact and position set and overlay it with this from my groundwork piece Follow the Money from 01 Jun 21, which establishes energy as the international currency of corruption, crime and treason and put Biden in the middle of it.

One example is how,

“Odebrecht backs us up to a 26 Nov 19 article examining Biden relative to Ukraine. It was a build on work from the previous day that had identified a circular flow of money I characterized as: Obama/Biden <> Ukraine/Iran <>Iran/Ukraine <> Biden/Obama. Ukraine and Iran factor in heavily in the research vectors and that work delivered Brazil and a bunch of other nations of which there are presumably more to identify.”

“Let’s follow the money. Moving forward from the Ukraine, Iran, Brazil tangent used to establish the basis of our discussion to introduce the energy sector as a legitimate conduit to illegitimately move money, we arrive at a substantial article outlining Biden’s crimes. We focus our attention on both the 2013 BHR Partners for $1.5b and the 2017 [Hunter/China/CCP/PLA/CEFC $6 million dollar deals in private equity; and we do this with our stronger understanding of the energy sector conduit.

The CEFC China Energy Company, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2020, was a CCP owned and controlled energy company just much like Petrobras in Brazil. Remember, these criminals map the same constructs and schemes over different areas to commit the same crimes.

Patrick Ho, who is a Chinese Deep State asset, will bear down as the nexus between the CEFC, it’s chairman Ye Jianming, where Hunter Biden entered an agreement to serve as an “attorney.” Although Biden graduated from Yale Law School in 1996, he has no qualifications in energy.”

Political Moonshine

China and Iran are clearly the central nodes here.

When U.S. dollars flow to Iran through energy, NGOs, or by other means, those dollars are converted into funding international terrorism as the Trump Administration reminds us, “The regime provides funding to a number of terrorist groups, including Hizballah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Kata’ib Hizballah, al-Ashtar Brigades, and others.”

The U.S. and the Intelligence Community are pulling Iran’s strings and the entanglements get more problematic.

In late November 2020, the involvement of Iran and China in the stolen 2020 election was verified in the analysis of case files relative to Dominion Voting.

By 2022, Iran had become the #3 funding source of the WHO behind Germany [1] and the U.S. [2], but where China is the #2 funding source for all of the UN behind #1 U.S.

By these and other means including the generational infiltration of the U.S. in myriad ways, the IC threads tie directly to China and Iran.

By March 2022, U.S. aid to Ukraine could be tethered to Iran with further development needed.

By July 2023, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was already in the mode of operational cover-up on an international scale in all of the areas of Biden et al’s criminality in Ukraine, Europe more broadly and elsewhere.

In July 2023, I also dismantled the ODNI COVID-19 origins report that was authored by the IC to cover-up and compartmentalize the culpability of the “pandemic,” which was a product of enterprise fraud by the DOD, IC, broader U.S. federal apparatus and private corporations made in conjunction with China, the EU and others, to attribute the “pandemic” to a lab leak and specifically the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Ralph Baric at UNC Chapel Hill and his gain of function work/bioweaponization of SARS-CoV-2 in conjunction, Peter Dazak at EcoHealth Alliance [funding conduit] and WIV bear down.

By September 2023, IC/DOJ cover-up operations included arresting the Ukrainian oligarch and billionaire who installed Volodymyr Zelensky as Ukrainian President and where Zelensky’s nationalization of PrivatBank is a central node to the massive global money laundering operation in Ukraine that envelops Biden, McConnell, McCarthy, Johnson a wide swath of Democrats and some Republicans via FTX/SBF.

Then in December 2023, I reported on the IC assessment that downplayed the role of China and Iran in our [2022] elections.

Iran and China are in political, military and economic alignment combining to oppose the U.S. where on the surface, the U.S. is under direct attack and beneath the surface, it is conspiring in that attack represented by an asymmetrical, irregular and undeclared war that aligns with China’s hegemonic and military doctrines; and specifically biowarfare.

The flashpoint of that war was August 2019 in China when SARS-CoV-2 was released at the World Police and Fire Games for international propagation once the competitors arrived back home [leaving the door open for other plausible scenarios].

Forward to the present, which was initiated by a stolen 2020 election facilitated by a fake “pandemic” unpacked on us while everyone was hollering about a fake impeachment, we are on the precipice of nuclear Armageddon in World War III.

Longstanding analysis holds that Syria stands to be the kinetic flashpoint for WWIII.

The march to Syria began with a Biden foreign policy shift the analysis identified on 19 Dec 20 where after the stolen election and before Biden’s 13-minute early January 2021 inauguration, the IC moved the crosshairs from Trump’s appropriate hyper-focus on China and the CCP back to its favorite ‘boogeyman,’ Russia?

Then in December 2023, Biden renewed a national emergency with respect to Iran: “On November 14, 1979, by Executive Order 12170, the President declared a national emergency with respect to Iran pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) and took related steps to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the situation in Iran.”

Then in December 2023, Biden invoked language “consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148)” to execute strikes against Iran in Iraq and Syria.

In March 2022, consider how “the White House or the State Department is going to reclassify the revolutionary guard, they’re no longer going to be terrorists, the revolutionary guard, the biggest terrorist killers in the Middle East or God knows where.”

In May 2023; however, Biden peculiarly reversed to make a final determination to keep the terrorist designation for the IRGC.

The U.S. Central Command [CENTCOM] then issued this statement on Friday night 02 Feb 24:

“At 4:00 p.m. (EST) Feb. 02, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups. U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States. The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions. The facilities that were struck included command and control operations centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces.”

CENTCOM

We understand that investigations are opened and prosecutions are conducted either to expose and prosecute criminality or conceal and cover.

So, again we ask, what is really going on here?

Are Biden and Garland giving fidelity to prosecution or is this more operational cover-up of RICO crimes in an escalated and designed march to World War III involving all of the same nations, entities and people?

Our entire reality is a fraud and until Americans figure that out writ large in order to do something about it, we’re all slaves.

-End-

GO DEEPER ON THE INDICTMENTS

“Seven defendants – including a senior IRGC-QF official, the son of Rostam Ghasemi, a former IRGC Commander and Iranian Minister of Petroleum, an Iranian shipping official, an agent of the IRGC-QF – are charged in a five-count indictment unsealed today in Manhattan federal court. In connection with these charges, the United States has seized $108 million that China Oil & Petrolium Company Limited, an IRGC front company, attempted to launder through correspondent transaction accounts at U.S. financial institutions in furtherance of the scheme to fund the IRGC-QF’s malign activities through the illicit sale of Iranian oil. In addition, the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) announced today that it has sanctioned China Oil & Petroleum Company Limited for its role in the oil trafficking network.

“For years, the IRGC and its Qods Force have been instrumental in the Iranian regime’s violent suppression of political dissent, targeting of Iranian dissidents living abroad, and support of international terrorism — including groups like Hamas, Hizballah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Today’s charges show how, as alleged, the IRGC’s Qods force built a sprawling international network of front companies to launder sanctioned Iranian oil using lies, forgery, and threats of violence,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “This alleged scheme to finance the Qods Force succeeds through the complicity of wealthy businessmen in countries like Turkey who are eager to turn a corrupt profit from supporting terror groups. The Qods Force oil-laundering network allegedly delivered millions of barrels of Iranian oil to government-affiliated buyers in Russia, China, and Syria, and transferred billions of dollars through the U.S. financial system. This office has long served at the forefront of law enforcement efforts to fight terrorism and terror finance and to protect the integrity of the U.S. banking system. I commend the tireless and outstanding efforts of our law enforcement partners in unraveling and disrupting the IRGC’s scheme.”

SDNY / DOJ

Read the rest: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-terrorism-and-sanctions-evasion-charges-and-seizures-linked