The Guardian:
The Australian multinational at the centre of an Iran sanctions scandal has offloaded a $15m shipment of Iranian cargo it says it was duped into taking, and is reviewing its operations to avoid a repeat.
A subsidiary of ASX-listed company Incitec Pivot took hold of a cargo shipment of fertiliser from Iran late last month, potentially risking a contravention of strict United States sanctions.
The company, Quantum Fertiliser, said it was deceived by its supplier about the origin of the product, and quickly moved to offload it.
Shipping logs, internal documents and leaked video show how the cargo originated in Iran aboard a vessel known as the CS Future, before being transported to China and reloaded on to a second ship, the Bulk Aquila, which was being used by the Australian-owned company. The cargo was supposed to be sold to customers in India.
Guardian Australia first revealed the existence of the shipment a week ago. The company said it had already detected that the shipment had suspect origins while it was loading the fertiliser at a port in Lianyungang, China.
A Quantum spokesman said its supplier had offloaded the cargo at a port in Yantai, in China’s Shandong province.
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This practice is nothing new. It has been going on forever. Iran has been buying products from countries they claim to be their enemies, for decades. Using fake tags is the easiest thing in these types of transactions. So, I don’t see how this particular transaction would be a scandal.
Right after the revolution, American engineers used Italian passports to go to Iran. As a friend working for Halliburton once jokingly said, “Americans haven’t left. They’re camping in the mountains nearby.”
The more legitimate method is clothes, bags or shoes made by the Chinese living in Italy. The country of origin is Italy, for sure. But the designs and workmanship do not resemble anything Italian