In a statement, the Department announced that it has seized $7 million of Iranian assets and the amount will be given to the so-called victims of terrorism.
“The $7 million will be allocated to the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, which Congress established to provide compensation to certain individuals who were injured in acts of international state-sponsored terrorism.”
“Beginning in 2011 and continuing up to 2014, the conspirators, including three Iranian nationals and, allegedly, one U.S. citizen, defrauded South Korean banks by submitting false documents purporting to show that Iranian companies were doing legitimate business with Korean companies. Based on these false documents, the conspirators succeeded in unlawfully transferring approximately $1 billion worth of Iranian-owned funds out of South Korea and into the world’s financial markets.”
“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,” Acting Assistant Attorney General David Burns of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division claimed.
“The agreement announced today resolves that forfeiture case with a proposed order that $7 million be forfeited to the United States,” according to the Department.
US accusations against the Islamic Republic comes as Iran has been one of the victims of terrorism since some 40 years ago and two the assassination of two national figures just happened in 2020; the assassination of General Soleimani and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The US has waged an economic war against Iran since May 2018 after unilaterally withdrawing from the Nuclear Deal, imposing severe economic sanctions against the country that has been described by Iranian officials as ‘economic terrorism’.
MAH/PR/5115240
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