US Treasury orders sanctions against Malta companies acting as 'fronts' for Iranian military cargo shipping

The action will target Irisl’s complex network of shipping and holding companies and executives which the US claims are used advance Iran’s illicit weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme and carry military cargoes.

MaltaToday had first reported how the office of the Maltese-owned Royal-Med Shipping Agency, at 143 Tower Road, Sliema, was housing front companies owned by Irisl.

MaltaToday located 13 Irisl-owned companies in Sliema, while another address in Qormi hosts 19 shipping companies whose shareholders are Ebrahim Mohammadnabi and Hassan Djalilzadeh, two senior officials at Irisl, registered in Teheran; and at 147/1, St Lucia Street, Valletta, 10 Irisl-owned companies are located. They are all subsidiaries of ISI Maritime, an Irisl company.

The central node of this network is Royal-Med shipping agency, which is the agent for a private, Iranian company – the Hafiz Darya Shipping Lines (HDS). HDS was created in 2009 shortly after the US and UK hit Irisl with trading bans over its alleged role in supplying Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, to take over IRISL’s container business as part of a government privatisation move.

But the New York Times has established that HDS operates out of the third floor of Irisl’s main headquarters in Aseman Tower, in Tehran.

Mansour Eslami, the director of Irisl (Malta) Limited, is one of five company directors designated by the US sanctions.

Also designated are Shere Shipping, Tongham Shipping, Uppercourt Shipping, and Vobster Shipping, all located at the same address in Malta that are directly or indirectly owned or controlled by Irisl or one of its subsidiaries. Each of these firms is the registered owner of a blacklisted Iranian vessel.

Credit checks by MaltaToday show that Royal-Med’s sole director-shareholder, Adrian Baldacchino, was formerly the shareholder in Maraner Holdings: the company that previously owned Irisl Malta, along with its other shareholder, Irisl Europe.

Royal-Med is the agent for HDS, which acts as the ship manager of various Malta-flagged ships that previously belonged to Irisl.

But now they have been transferred to these shell companies, with the ship names changed from their Iranian appellations into innocuous English-sounding names.

So for example, the M/V Iran Kerman has now changed to Silver Craft, and is owned by Kerman Shipping, registered at 143/1, Tower Road, Sliema. The reason is simple. Whereas before the new sanctions, running a compliance check on a transaction involving one of these ships would have raised several red flags, the new ship names allowed the same transactions to appear clean.

It is not suggested that the creation of these shell companies and the transfer of ownership is unlawful.

“We will continue to expose the elaborate structures and tactics Iran uses to shield its shipping line from international scrutiny so that it can continue to facilitate illicit commerce,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey.

“This pattern of obfuscation is leading the private sector around the world to refuse business with Iran rather than risk becoming involved in its nuclear and missile programs.”

READ MORE: How Iran circumvents US sanctions by stashing its vessels in Malta