Iran: Terrorist Quds Force funded by illegal transfers via China - report

                    

The Iranian regime is transferring money via Chinese companies and banks to help fund their terrorist Quds Force, a new Western intelligence report has revealed.

The report seen by the Reuters news agency names the Shenzhen Lanhao Days Electronic Technology Co Ltd as one outfit receiving Iranian cash which is then passed onto the elite force which is part of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The Quds Force provides arms, aid and training for terrorist groups in the Middle East.

US and European officials say they have also armed and trained government forces in Syria's civil war in violation of a UN arms embargo, and have been sanctioned as supporters of terrorism by both Washington and the EU.

The intelligence report said the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) holds accounts with the Bank of Kunlun Co Ltd, a China National Petroleum Corp unit. Quds-controlled Iranian companies, including one called Bamdad Capital Development Co, then make transfers from these accounts to either Chinese entities directly controlled by the Quds or to Chinese entities owed money by the Quds, such as Shenzhen Lanhao.

The seven-page report said: "The money transfers from accounts held by the CBI with Bank Kunlun are initiated by the Quds Force and transferred to Chinese companies connected to the Quds Force in order to meet its financial needs."

Once the money is transferred from Kunlun to other entities, the Quds can use it to finance all sorts of covert activity in other countries, the report said, but it could not account for how specific funds moving out of the CBI's accounts at Kunlun would be used by the Quds.

And the report does not suggest that either the Chinese government or Bank of Kunlun were aware of any connection to the Quds Force connection to Kunlun's transactions.

The report estimates that hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed from Kunlun to the Quds Force in the past year, though the exact amount is unknown.

As Western sanctions tightened on Iran in 2012, Beijing picked Kunlun as its main bank to process billions of dollars in oil payments to Iran, therefore shielding other banks from penalties. Kunlun had assets of $40 billion at the end of 2013, according to its annual report.

The US sanctions in 2012 targeted money Iran was being paid for oil exports, including $22 billion held at Kunlun. But there was an easing in the restrictions in November 2013 under a bilateral agreement with China ahead of an interim nuclear deal with Iran.

The deal between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China gave Tehran access to several billion dollars in assets frozen at banks worldwide in exchange for assurances it would curtail a nuclear program.

Negotiators will now gather in Vienna this week to try to reach a deal that will prevent the Iranian regime from building a nuclear bomb while eventually lifting sanctions that have badly hurt its economy, although hopes of a breakthrough are slim.