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Iran oil ministry seeks to return oil revenues to government

Iran Materials 10 September 2013 15:01 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Sep.10/ Trend R.Zamanov

The Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Tuesday that he'll follow the oil revenues case to return all income to the government.

"Some portion of the money has been transferred to the government, while the rest is still in private accounts," the ISNA News Agency quoted Zanganeh as saying.

According to Zanganeh, over two billion dollars of Iran's oil revenue is in possession of Babak Zanjani.

"I haven't talked to Babak Zanjani and I'm not going to do so, but I'll follow his case," he said.

"Zanjani claims the Americans blocked his bank account so he is not able to transfer the money to the Iranian government," he explained.

"Returning the oil revenue to the government is my priority," Zanganeh concluded.

Babak Zanjani, a well-known Iranian businessman, has repeatedly claimed he helped Iran's government to sell oil, as well helping Iranians to transfer billions of dollars from outside the country.

He was backlisted by the United States on April 11 four months after the European Union blacklisted him.

In an interview with the ISNA News Agency in August, Zanjani said that a foreign bank has confiscated 250 million dollars from his account since the United States fined the bank due to handling money transfers of Iranians.

He didn't mention to the name of the bank, but the United States imposed a 250-million dollars fine on the Japanese Mitsubishi Bank in June for violating US sanctions on Iran.

The council of the European Union has announced that Babak Zanjani (born on March 12, 1971) is assisting designated entities to violate the provisions of EU regulation on Iran and is providing financial support to the government of Iran. Zanjani is a key facilitator for Iranian oil deals and transferring oil-related money.

Zanjani owns and operates the UAE-based Sorinet Group and some of its companies are used by Zanjani to channel oil-related payments, the ISNA News Agency reported on August 31.

He is a member of the boards of directors of the Malaysia-based First Islamic Bank, but rejects being the owner or share-holder of the bank.

Zanjani said that has helped transfer 17.5 billion euros of Iranian banks' capital from outside the country to domestic bank accounts with a 0.007-per cent interest.

He further rejected rumours about him selling Iranian oil at a cheap price. He said that a Hong Kong-based company which is a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, is in charge of selling Iran's oil, but since no bank was ready to transfer money for the firm, the said company asked him to help and he managed to transfer the money via the Malaysia-based bank of which he was a member of its board of directors.

Zanjani also said he has helped the Hong Kong-based company with selling eight oil containers as well as some gas condensates containers. He claimed that he has helped Iran sell a total number of 12 oil and gas condensates containers and secured the money transfer.

According to Zanjani, the National Iranian Oil Company in total exported 1.9 million euros worth of oil products via his companies.

He said that after being blacklisted by the US and the EU, the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) gave a 15-day deadline to the bank in order to transfer his financial resources worth over 13.5 billion euros to somewhere else.

Zanjani said that he is accused of violating sanctions against Iran in 272 cases.

He said that the First Islamic Bank has saved 17.5 billion euros of Iran's oil revenues by transferring the mentioned amount to domestic accounts through over 9000 transactions.

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