US Collects $7 Million in Iranian Assets for Victims of Terrorism Fund
The US government
collected $7 million in Iranian assets for victims of state-sponsored
terrorism, the Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The money was the US
share of a civil forfeiture that targeted attempts to violate sanctions on Iran
with fraudulent transfers of about $1 billion of Iranian-owned funds to
accounts around the world, it said in a statement.
“The funds forfeited today had been destined to benefit criminal actors
who engaged in an elaborate scheme to violate US sanctions against Iran, one of
the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism,” said Acting Assistant
Attorney General David Burns.
“Thanks to assistance from our foreign partners and the combined efforts
of the Criminal Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of
Alaska, the FBI, and the IRS, the forfeited funds will instead be used to
directly compensate victims of state sponsors of terrorism.”
The Justice
Department also said that between 2011 and 2014 three Iranian nationals and one
US citizen defrauded South Korean banks by submitting false documents showing
that Iranian companies were doing legitimate business with Korean companies.
