Iran’s Misuse of Civilian Aircraft

In August 2022, Argentine authorities grounded a U.S.-origin Boeing 747 cargo plane formerly owned and operated by Mahan Air, and currently owned by a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned airline, Conviasa. Among the five Iranians on board the plane was Gholamreza Ghasemi—a former commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a board member of the U.S.-designated Qeshm Fars Air. An Argentine judge prohibited him, along with other passengers, from leaving the country, as an investigation into the plane, including its reason for being in Argentina, was carried out. A Mahan Air flight log that had documented the airplane’s routes between Caracas, Tehran, and Moscow, was found aboard the plan, further suggesting ties to the IRGC-linked operator. Still, Mahan Air denies that it is linked to the aircraft.

The suggested links between the Emtrasur plane, Mahan Air, and the IRGC raise the possibility that this plane was involved in illicit activities—and serve as a reminder of Iran’s interests in the western hemisphere. According to an investigative journalist, one of the purposes of this flight may have been to conduct business on behalf of Hezbollah and the IRGC’s Quds Force. This journalist pointed out that the Emtrasur plane stopped in Paraguay prior to heading to Argentina. There, it loaded 80 tons of cigarettes from an alleged Hezbollah-linked company, owned by the former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes. As Cartes helped Hezbollah smuggle cigarettes and launder money when he was in power, this journalist suggested that the purpose of the Emtrasur flight was “terrorism financing” through the cigarette sales, and the transfer of funds on behalf of Hezbollah, which has been excluded from the global banking system. The true purpose of the plane’s stop in Paraguay and Argentina, however, remains unknown. The cargo could have merely been a façade, the Argentine anti-corruption minister said.

In July 2022, media reports emerged alleging that Iran was using Mahan Air planes to ship goods into Syria, without paying taxes or customs duties. Mahan Air flights from Tehran to Damascus increased 30% from June 2022 to July 2022 to fill a void in the air traffic that owed to Iran’s cancellation of all Caspian Air and Qeshm Fars Air flights between the two capitals. Iran reportedly canceled these flights after Israeli air strikes shut down the Damascus airport.  

In December 2021, five of Qeshm Fars Air’s Boeing 747s landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, amid the country’s civil war between government forces and rebels. The contents of the cargo flights were not disclosed at the time of reporting, but analysts believed that the flights could have been carrying weapons and equipment, including the Iranian weapons-capable Mohajer-6 drone, to support the Ethiopian government. Photos of the Mohajer-6 in Ethiopia were published in August 2021. Between August 2021 and December 2021, there were 15 Qeshm Fars Air flights from Tehran to Ethiopia—double the total number of flights prior to the country’s civil war.

In July 2020, Mahan Air flight 1152 departed from Tehran, heading for Beirut, Lebanon. It passed directly over the U.S. military outpost in al-Tanf, Syria. The commercial aircraft, which was intercepted and inspected in mid-flight by two U.S. Air Force F-15 jets that flew from Jordan, was suspected of conducting reconnaissance. The Mahan Air plane may have been equipped with cameras and other sensors for the purpose of identifying targets at the U.S. garrison. Such intelligence would enable Iran or its surrogates to more effectively stage an attack against U.S. troops and military assets.

In a May 2020 press release, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that Mahan Air was being used to prop up the illegitimate and corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela. The U.S. government determined that Mahan Air charter flights were being used to ship technicians and technical equipment to Venezuela for use in reviving the country’s flagging energy production in exchange for gold bars shipped back to Iran. The Venezuelan energy sector’s productivity has been diminished by years of corruption and mismanagement.

Venezuela reportedly sent 9 tons of gold worth $500 million to Tehran on Mahan Air flights throughout the month of May 2020. The flights also increased in frequency, oil industry experts said. Whether Iran rendered other services or provided other materials as part of this exchange was not immediately clear, however then-Special Envoy to Iran Brian Hook alluded to foul play, saying in an interview, “I think we can probably safely assume it’s not limited to [helping Venezuela’s oil industry].”

This was not the first time that Venezuela exchanged gold with Iran. Western diplomatic sources told the BBC back in February 2019 that Venezuela was transporting huge quantities of gold to Turkey—some of which ended up in Iran. Again, it was not clear based on the reporting what the gold was exchanged for. These flights, which began in early 2019, could have been used to transport lethal cargo and/or operatives. In December 2020, Admiral Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, said that the U.S. observed an “uptick” in arms shipments to Venezuela throughout 2020, though he did not specify what types of arms. A month prior to this statement, however, research organization Aurora Intel tweeted images of the Iran-made Mohajer-6 drone in Venezuela. Facilitating covert travel of IRGC operatives by bypassing security procedures and flight manifests and shipping weapons fall in line with the modus operandi of the IRGC-linked Mahan Air. 

In April 2020, Spain banned flights of Mahan Air, signaling the cessation of Mahan Air scheduled routes into mainland Europe.

In August 2017, Congressional leaders were provided photographic evidence of an Iran Air passenger plane with the company’s logo visible on the headrest being used to transport militants affiliated with the Fatemiyoun Brigade, an Afghan Shia mercenary militia trained and funded by the IRGC, to Syria. The photographs depicting Iran Air engaged in sanctionable activity were reportedly taken during 2016 and 2017, well after the lifting of sanctions against it.

The revelation of these photographs prompted four Republican lawmakers, Reps. Peter Rosakam (R-IL), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Andy Barr (R-KY), and David Reichert (R-WA) to write a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin calling for an investigation into the photos and the re-designation of Iran Air if found to have engaged in illicit military transports. In the letter, the Congressmen wrote, “These photos offer strong evidence of Iran Air’s noncommercial and illicit use of commercial aircraft to materially support the IRGC and the Assad Regime.”

In January 2017, Ukrainian authorities announced the seizure of a shipment of Russian-made anti-tank guided missile components bound for Iran, a violation of Annex B of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 forbidding the supply, sale and transfer of missiles or missile systems to Iran without the council’s prior approval. The illicit shipment was found on board aircraft operated by Ukrainian-Mediterranean (UM) Airlines, which has officially partnered with Mahan Air on daily flights from Ukraine to Iran since the JCPOA took effect. UM was designated by the Treasury Department in 2013 for leasing aircraft to Mahan Air. Rep. Roskam responded to the seizure, saying, “This is yet another example of the Islamic Republic using commercial aircraft for military purposes. Airbus and Boeing cannot claim ignorance on this—the Regime’s behavior is on full display before the world."

In November 2016, Israel’s Ambassador the United Nations sent an urgent letter to the Security Council alleging, based on Israeli intelligence, that “The Iranian Al-Quds Force packs weapons, ammunition and missile technology to Hezbollah in suitcases and puts them on Mahan Air flights. … These planes fly directly to the airport in Lebanon or Damascus and from there the weapons are transferred on the ground to Hezbollah."

In the months after the JCPOA was reached, Mahan Air intensified its service between Iran and Syria, conducting nearly daily flights between Tehran and Damascus and Latakia, an Assad regime stronghold.

Following the January 2016 implementation of the JCPOA, Iran Air ceased operating the Iran-Syria route for a brief period of time. However, in June 2016, Emanuele Ottolenghi, an expert on Iran’s history of sanctions evasion, observed three flights using publicly-available flight data indicating the resumption of the well-known weapons resupply route. On June 9, an Iran Air plane spent an hour in Abadan, Iran, the logistical hub of the IRGC’s airlifts to Assad and Hezbollah, before continuing on to Damascus. On June 8 and 15, Iran Air operated flights from Tehran to Damascus utilizing a Najaf-Tehran flight number in an effort to disguise their true destination.  

Iran Air’s flights to Syria continued to multiply. Between Implementation Day of the JCPOA in January 2016 and August 2017, over 1000 flights, including 134 such flights by Iran Air, departed from points in Iran and landed in Syria, indicating an ongoing complex logistical operation to resupply the Assad regime. In one two-month period alone during 2017, Iranian and Syrian airlines delivered an estimated 21,000 passengers and 5,000 tons of supplies from Tehran and Abadan to Damascus. In sum, Iran operated 11 commercial flights per week to Syria during this period, with two flights per week operated by Iran Air. Lending credence to the nefarious nature of these Iran Air flights, the flights occur at irregular intervals and Iran Air’s website does not have tickets to Damascus available to the general public on its website. Nor is Damascus even listed as a possible destination.

In October 2012, the U.S. Treasury found that, “In the summer of 2012, Iran used Iran Air and Mahan Air flights between Tehran and Damascus to send military and crowd control equipment to the Syrian Regime. This activity was coordinated with Hizballah.” As a result of these activities, the Treasury Department designated 117 aircraft operated by Iran Air, Mahan Air, and Yas Air as blocked property.

In March 2011, Turkey intercepted a plane operated by Iranian cargo airline Yas Air that was carrying assault rifles, machine guns, ammunition, and mortar shells from Iran to Syria, the U.N. Security Council reported.

A 2011 report by a U.N. expert panel on North Korea found that, “Prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air, with trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.”

In 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Iran Air, finding that the commercial airline was “used by the IRGC and Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) to transport military related equipment.” The designation further alleged that, “Iran Air has shipped military-related equipment on behalf of the IRGC since 2006. … Additionally, commercial Iran Air flights have also been used to transport missile or rocket components to Syria.”

Between 2007 and at least 2010, Venezuelan state-owned airline, Conviasa, sharing a code with Iran Air, serviced regular flights from Caracas to Damascus to Tehran. The flight was listed as a commercial route, but it was restricted to passengers cleared by the Venezuelan and Iranian governments, CIA analysts and Israeli intelligence said. The flight, nicknamed “aeroterror” because it transported some of the world’s most dangerous men, along with narcotics, weapons, explosives, and cash, was serviced through 2015, when it was abruptly cancelled.

By 2015, investigative journalists began to uncover the details of these operations: on one account, Hezbollah received narcotics in Syria from Venezuela; Syria provided fraudulent passports; and Iranian personnel and lethal cargo were picked up in Iran and flown to Venezuela. The travel documents obtained in Syria ensured Iranian operatives could move around freely in Latin America. In short, “aeroterror” was an arms-and-operatives-for-cocaine deal, overseen by Hezbollah and Iranian agents, that transformed Venezuela into a forward operating base for Tehran—a direct threat to the American homeland. Moreover, Western intelligence agencies suspect that the flights could have contained radioactive materials—possibly for Iran’s nuclear program. The flights from Venezuela occurred at least twice a month, if not more frequently

In establishing a terror network in the western hemisphere by embedding Hezbollah and Hamas operatives along with Quds Force spies, Iran, and its proxies may be capable of planning strikes against the U.S. homeland, or against U.S. or Israeli interests in the region, as Hezbollah did in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires or the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. According to experts and Venezuelan opposition figures, preparations for an attack aim to deter a U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In August 2022, Argentine authorities grounded a U.S.-origin Boeing 747 in Argentina that was owned and operated by Mahan Air since 2007, but had been transferred to Emtrasur, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned airline, Conviasa, which is under U.S. sanctions. The U.S., then, requested that the cargo jet be forfeited over to the U.S., because Mahan Air did not obtain U.S. authorization before making the transfer, thus violating an effective 2008 U.S. Department of Commerce order. The transfer of the plane, as well as Emtrasur’s “reexport” of the plane between Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, without U.S. authorization, violated U.S. export controls, which dictate that Mahan Air is prohibited from engaging in transactions involving U.S.-origin products subject to Export Administration Regulations, a Department of Justice press release seeking the forfeiture of the plane to the U.S. said. On the day prior to the U.S. request, a seizure warrant was unsealed in a U.S. federal court.

In August 2020, the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC designated two United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.)-based companies for providing key parts and logistics services for Mahan Air.

In May 2020, the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC designated China-Based Shanghai Saint Logistics Limited, a general sales agent (GSA) acting on behalf of Mahan Air.

In April 2020, Spain banned flights of Mahan Air, signaling the cessation of Mahan Air scheduled routes into mainland Europe.

In December 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department designated three sales agents of Mahan Air, which “prop up Mahan Air’s commercial operations” by providing services that range from “sales, financial, administrative, and marketing services to freight reception and handling.”

In November 2019, Italy banned Mahan Air flights.

In March 2019, France joined Germany and several other countries to deny Mahan Air landing rights due to the airline’s involvement in transporting military equipment and personnel to Syria.

In January 2019, Germany announced its decision to deny Mahan Air landing rights saying that “it is in Germany’s diplomatic interest that there are no flights to Germany by companies that support the military conflict in Syria and contribute to the repression of people in war zones.”

In January 2019, The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) designated Qeshm Fars Air for being owned or controlled b Mahan Air, and for providing material support to the IRGC-QF, and Armenia-based Flight Travel LLC for acting for or on behalf of Mahan Air.

In November 2018, the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC added Iran Air to the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN).

In September 2018, the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC designated Thailand-based My Aviation Company Limited for action on behalf of Mahan Air. According to the accompanying press release, “My Aviation provides cargo services to Mahan Air, to include freight booking, and works with local freight forwarding entities to ship cargo aboard regularly scheduled Mahan Air flights to Tehran.

In July 2018, The U.S. Treasury’s OFAC designated Mahan Travel and Tourism Sdn Bhd, a Malaysia based General Sales Agent (GSA), for acting on behalf of Mahan Air. According to the designation, “GSAs such as Mahan Travel and Tourism Sdn Bhd are key to enabling Mahan Air’s international operations, especially in regards to conducting financial transactions on behalf of the airline.”

In May 2018, The U.S. Treasury’s OFAC designated nine individuals and entities procuring export-controlled U.S. origin goods for sanctioned Iranian airlines. Treasury Secretary Steven Munchin said, “The facilitators designated by the Treasury today have been procuring parts and providing services for the fleets of sanctioned Iranian airlines, including Mahan Air, Caspian Air, Meraj Air, and Pouya Air.  In so doing, they extend a lifeline to the IRGC-QF and enable the Iranian Regime to transport weapons, fighters, and money to its proxies, including Hizballah, and to prop up the brutal Assad regime…Countries and companies around the world should take note of the risks associated with granting landing rights and providing aviation services to the airlines used by Iran to export terrorism throughout the region.  The deceptive practices these airlines employ to illegally obtain services and U.S. goods is yet another example of the duplicitous ways in which the Iranian Regime has operated.”