June 12. (EUROPA PRESS) –
This Tuesday, the United States Justice Department sentenced two of its citizens to 45 months in prison for evading part of the sanctions imposed against Iran by helping them export oil to their buyers in China.
“Zhenyu ‘Bill’ Wang (43 years old) and Daniel Ray Lane (42 years old) have been held responsible for attempting to broker illicit oil sales between Iran and China, and laundering the proceeds, in violation of US sanctions. The The court’s ruling makes clear that those who put personal gain before national security will face serious consequences,” said Deputy Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.
The investigation has concluded that both citizens, from the state of Texas, were not only “fully aware” that their activity represented a violation of US sanctions, but that they intended to obtain “great benefits” thanks to them.
Thus, while Wang went so far as to say that he “loves sanctions” because “they make everyone money,” Lane said that “there is always a way to avoid them”; According to his own calculations, they intended to obtain a profit of 1.5 million dollars (1.4 billion euros) for each shipment of 500,000 barrels, and they planned to export up to two million barrels per month.
“Wang played a critical role in this conspiracy by providing the connection to the Chinese buyers who would purchase the Iranian oil. As part of his efforts, Wang contacted multiple parties in China, obtained a written offer from a Chinese buyer, and negotiated a sales contract with this buyer. He also organized the payment of bribes to Chinese officials to facilitate the illegal transaction,” the document states.
Lane, for his part, helped launder Iran’s proceeds from transactions through the mining rights he sold through his company, ‘Stack Royalites’, and even bought an ATM to count the money. .
The two convicts, along with three other conspirators who were sentenced in January to one year in prison, were dedicated to hiding the origin of the oil and the transaction, financing it, preparing contracts and the documents necessary to carry out the sale, sending sanctioned Iranian oil, to obtain Antigua and Barbuda passports to facilitate the transaction and establish offshore bank accounts to receive funds, to distribute the proceeds of the intended sale of the oil, and to conceal or disguise the nature, location, origin, ownership and control of the benefits.
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