An Iranian tycoon has used the tax-free port of Labuan for his oil business to skirt Western sanctions imposed on his country, the New York Times reported.
Babak Zanjani, 39, devised a scheme to disguise the origins of Iranian oil and sold it on the open market by transferring millions of barrels from tanker to tanker, often using Labuan as the drop-off point, as alleged by the European Union.
The New York Times quoted Zanjani in interviews with Iranian reformist weekly Aseman and the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency as saying that he used a vast network of 64 companies in Dubai, Turkey and Malaysia to sell millions of barrels of oil, earning US$17.5 billion (RM55.6 billion) in foreign exchange for Iran’s oil ministry, the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian central bank.
“In total, he said, he sold 24 million barrels of oil to buyers in Singapore, Malaysia and India and then laundered the money through Malaysian First Islamic Investment Bank, which is now on all the sanctions list,” noted the influential daily in the report entitled “To this tycoon, Iran sanctions were like gold”
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However, Zanjani, who puts his worth at US$13.5 billion (RM43 billion) and who controls a host of companies including a Turkish airline, financial institutions and a fleet of oil tankers, is now in trouble with both his government and Western nations.
The report said his business dealings are now being investigated by the new government in Teheran, who suspected him of withholding US$1.9 billion (RM6 billion) in oil revenues and working with corrupt inner circles of previous president Mahmood Ahmadinejad.
His accounts were frozen by the United States Treasury in April and he was blacklisted by the European Union for breaching sanctions against Iran.
Iran has come under sanction from Washington and its European allies following allegations that the Islamic republic was developing its nuclear programme, which Iran insisted was for generating electricity and medical research.
Speaking to Reuters last December, Zanjani denied any wrongdoing, saying his bank and other companies did not work for the Iranian government.
As for the money he owed the government, Zanjani said he already paid US$700 million (RM2.2 billion) but the current sanctions prevented him from transferring the remaining balance to the oil ministry.
"I will pay it back if they give me an account number tomorrow that accepts up to one billion euro.
"How can I transfer the money when the Oil Ministry and the central bank are under sanctions? We also are not able to transfer the money, but the money is in the account,” the New York Times quoted him as saying, adding that he had not taken anything above 0.007% in interest in all of the transactions. - October 6, 2013.
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