BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 28. The U.S. government has filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the District of Columbia seeking to seize $47 million in proceeds from the sale of nearly one million barrels of Iranian petroleum, TurkicWorld reports.
The funds are alleged to be linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the U.S. Department of Justice reported.
According to the complaint, between 2022 and 2024, intermediaries disguised the Iranian origin of the oil by falsifying documents and manipulating ship tracking systems, presenting it as Malaysian oil. The shipment was stored in Croatia, with transactions routed through U.S. financial institutions that would have blocked them had they known the oil’s true source.
The complaint also claims that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) played a role in financing the IRGC’s activities, including weapons proliferation, support for terrorism, and human rights violations. If successfully forfeited, the seized funds may be allocated to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund.
The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are leading the case, with prosecution handled by the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
