US tries to seize Iranian gas heading toward Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Joshua Goodman, Associated Press
Updated 12:27 pm CDT, Thursday, July 2, 2020

MIAMI (AP) — U.S. federal prosecutors are seeking to seize four tankers sailing toward Venezuela with gasoline supplied by Iran, the latest attempt to disrupt ever-closer trade ties between the two heavily sanctioned anti-American allies.

The civil-forfeiture complaint filed late Wednesday in the District of Columbia federal court alleges that the sale was arranged by a businessman, Mahmoud Madanipour, with ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

“The profits from these activities support the IRGC’s full range of nefarious activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism, and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad,” prosecutor Zia Faruqui alleges in the complaint.

. . .

The Trump administration has been stepping up pressure on ship owners to abide by sanctions against U.S. adversaries like Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. In May, it issued an advisory urging the global maritime industry to be on the lookout for tactics to evade sanctions like dangerous ship-to-ship transfers and the turning off of mandatory tracking devices — both techniques used in recent oil deliveries to and from both Iran and Venezuela.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/article/US-tries-to-seize-Iranian-gas-heading-toward-15382503.php

[lagomorph777]

1. I thought Venezuela was an oil exporter?

[abqtommy]

2. It's my understanding that Venezuelan oil is very "dirty" and difficult/costly to refine.

Nobody wants it...

[roamer65]

6. It's a very thick, tarry crude oil.

Only special refineries can process it.

[sandensea]

10. And their biggest (former) customer?

[EX500rider]

3. They are but have allowed their refinery capabilities to fall apart so they can't make enough gas.

[cstanleytech]

8. Are those the same refineries that they seized a few years ago? If so then they should look at

fixing them because they are going to have a hard time getting any of the oil companies to invest money themselves and build new ones.

[EX500rider]

14. Yeah seizing the foreign owned equip. drove off much needed expertise and investment..bad move

[Bayard]

4. How are they buying gas,

When there's no food to be had? Last I read, they were eating the zoo animals.

[iluvtennis]

5. He can seize Iranian tankers,but doesn't do shit to Russia for bounties on our military personnel.

[cstanleytech]

7. Yup, makes me wonder if the Russians have someone on Trump and if they do what

could be bad enough that he would be willing to allow the Russians to get away with paying to murder US troops?

[iluvtennis]

9. (my speculation) - the pee tapes that were outed during 2016 election. Also, I believe there is

trump tower moscow on the table as well.

[sandensea]

11. And I think we know what the "pee" tapes contain:

[cstanleytech]

12. Even if they exist though the rumor was out there already so if its something surely its something

other than that? If so then what else? About the only things I can think of that he would consider worse are either a video of him engaged in sex with another male or evidence of his ordering someone murdered.

[iluvtennis]

13. Don Jr: "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets"

Article from Dec 2018 - https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/

Excerpt:

.... according to several sources with knowledge of Trump’s business, foreign money played a large role in reviving his fortunes, in particular investment by wealthy people from Russia and the former Soviet republics. This conclusion is buttressed by a growing body of evidence amassed by news organizations, as well as what is reportedly being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Southern District of New York. It is a conclusion that even Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has appeared to confirm, saying in 2008—after the Trump Organization was prospering again—that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”