DOJ Marks Successful Forfeiture of Iranian Weapons, Petroleum Shipments
The U.S. concluded the forfeiture of two large weapons shipments and one large cache of oil products from Iran following two cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice announced Dec. 7. In 2019 and 2020, the U.S. Navy seized 171 Iranian surface-to-air missiles and eight anti-tank missiles, along with around 1.1 million barrels of Iranian petroleum products in the Arabian Sea in the largest-ever forfeiture of fuel and weapons shipments from Iran, DOJ said. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps organized the weapons shipments, designated for the Houthi militia in Yemen. The Navy seized the weapons from two vessels during routine maritime security operations, DOJ said. The petroleum products were taken from four foreign-flagged tankers in or around the Arabian Sea en route to Venezuela, DOJ said.
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In August 2020, DOJ launched a case in the D.C. District Court over the seized assets, alleging that the arms were part of an IRGC trafficking network to ship illegal weapons to the Houthi militants. The court entered default judgment Nov. 15, holding that the government had adequately found that the weapons belonged to the IRGC and that the IRGC is an entity planning or committing terrorism against the U.S., DOJ said. The U.S. also filed a complaint in July 2020 in the same district court seeking forfeiture of the petroleum products. The court issued a default judgment Oct. 1, legitimizing the U.S.'s seizure of the petroleum products.
Pursuant to a court order, the U.S. sold the seized petroleum products in a sale amounting to over $26.7 million that will be directed, in whole or in part, to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, DOJ said. “The actions of the United States in these two cases strike a resounding blow to the Government of Iran and to the criminal networks supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of DOJ's National Security Division. “The Department of Justice will continue to use all available tools to combat the threats posed by terrorist organizations and all those who seek to harm the United States and its allies.”