Wirth

Engineering and Construction
OSL:AKSO
Germany
Wirth

[email protected] (general) [email protected] (COO, Germany) [email protected] (Aker Wirth International, USA)

  • Wirth GMBH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aker Solutions, a Norwegian engineering and construction company.  The acquisition occurred in March 2009.
  • “Be it…a water-supply system in Iran – as an employee of Aker Wirth, you will be there as progressive technology is created and put to use in the field. And the fields of activity open to you at Aker Wirth are as diverse as our technologies and work sites.” (Aker-Wirth website)
  • “German producer of tunnel boring machinery – proudly boasts on its website that ‘… a new water supply system is created in the Iranian mountains of Isfahan, Wirth machines are used.’ Indeed they are. The problem is that one of Wirth’s project clients in Iran is Sahel Consulting Engineers – a company owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Wirth has so far declined to comment on the matter.” (BESA Center for Strategic Studies, “Iran's Deceptive Commercial Practices,” 4/15/08)
  • “Two European concerns—Wirth, from Germany, and Seli, from Italy—sold tunnel-boring equipment to Iran for its Ghomroud water project. Wirth’s contract was concluded after Germany’s export-control agency, BAFA, determined that the machines involved in this project, being intended only for civilian use, were not subject to embargo.

    Overseeing the tunnel project, however, was Sahel Consulting Engineers, a company owned by the IRGC. Nor is this connection a secret. The website of Wirth’s subsidiary in Iran features images of the Ghomroud construction site. The sign welcoming visitors to the project bears the logo of the IRGC, and the same logo is visible above the tunnel entrance…

    Once the digging is finished, though, the equipment belongs to the subsidiary businesses of the IRGC, which can do with them what they wish.   Intelligence photographs have regularly indicated that much of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program is being built deep underground, in bunkers accessible by means of tunnels. The machinery and technology for constructing such tunnels can only have been provided by Wirth and Seli.” (Commentary Magazine, "The Iranian Shell Game," July-August 2008)

  • “Wirth and Seli – German and Italian companies producing sophisticated tunnel-boring machinery – have supplied their machines and technical assistance to IRGC companies, for instance. Their business was not subject to any restrictions or embargoes, yet intelligence reports have repeatedly suggested that much of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program is being built deep underground, in bunkers that are accessible through tunnels – tunnels which only such technology could build.” (Transatlantic Institute, "Iran's Deceptive Ways," May 2008)