Maltese shipping agent delisted from America’s Iran blacklist

A Maltese shipping agent who was blacklisted the United States treasury for his involvement with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (Irisl) has been delisted from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) specially designated nationals list.

Adrian Baldacchino, whose Royal-Med Shipping Line hosted the Maltese front companies set up by the blacklisted Iranian shipping line, was removed from the OFAC list blocking US entities from dealing with him.

The Maltese shipping agent acted as a front for Iran's blacklisted fleet of shipping containers and freight transporters before dispensing of all his shareholding in the company after the United Kingdom, and then the European Union, followed suit with stronger sanctions against Irisl and a freeze on assets.

The shipping agent deposited his shares at the Maltese courts and broken off all relations with the Iranian line.

As director of the Royal Med Agency in Sliema, Baldacchino hosted the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line when it transferred all ownership its ships to a new, private company called Hafiz Darya Shipping (HDS).

Irisl first set up base in Malta in 2004, but it later got slapped with United States and United Kingdom trading bans and its ships blacklisted from entering several ports under EU sanctions, over suspicions that it was transporting dual-use equipment for Iran's nuclear programme.

Using the Royal Med office in Sliema, Irisl transferred all its ships to HDS, then changed the names of all the ships to Western-sounding ones so that they would not be conspicuous on ship manifests, and continued trading as normal.

All the ships were individually registered under Maltese front companies that were usually owned by Irisl offices in Hamburg, Germany, or HDS, or other Irisl officers in Iran.

Malta has been highly cooperative in furnishing the US with information on the activities of Irisl when its ships were renamed and passed on to HDS as a way to bypass the US sanctions.

Former US ambassador Molly Bordonaro had noted in an embassy cable published by Wikileaks that it would be "unusual for the GOM to decline to take action on a direct USG request". In fact, Malta is revealed by the cables to have worked behind the scenes to strictly limit Iranian access, although there was no intention of shutting down Irisl's operations in Malta, which brought a significant amount of trade to the Malta Freeport.

An investigation by the New York Times found that Irisl set up 42 companies in Malta registered on various addresses to transfer its ships' ownership to these subsidiaries. Royal-Med serves as the agent for the private Iranian company Hafiz Darya Shipping Lines (HDS) which was created to take over all Irisl business in 2009 after it was hit by the US trading ban.

According to US embassy cables, Malta also accepted a firm commitment with the United States to deny requests by Iranian banks to establish a subsidiary, branch, or representative office in Malta.

Iranian bank Melli had been singled out in a United Nations Resolution as an "entity of particular concern", with Finance Minister Tonio Fenech informing the US ambassador that Malta would block Melli's request to use Malta's payment system, via London.

The US also urged Malta to approach law firms so that they institute "enhanced vigilance" over transactions with Irisl. In February 2009, law firm Ganado and Associates terminated all aspects of its professional relationship with Irisl.