Canadian sanctions against Iranian company don’t cover board member with business interest in B.C.

An Iranian businessman who owns shares and sits on the board of a Tehran-based private company that has been approved by Canada to coordinate weapons shipments to Russia has a company registered in British Columbia, Fifth Estate have learned

In the latest company records filed in Iran’s official journal, Mohammad Bagher Nahvi is listed as the vice chairman of Safiran Airport Services.

The cargo and commercial airline is one of the five entities sanctioned by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) last November for what the federal government says is its role in “brutal and systematic violations of human rights and actions that continue to threaten international peace and security.” ” .”

The GAC alleged that Safiran “coordinated Russian military flights between Iran and Russia, where the Iranian regime transferred Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia.”

The US Treasury Department sanctioned Safiran Airport Services in September 2022 to coordinate “Russian military flights between Iran and Russia, including those related to the transportation of UAVs, personnel, and related equipment from Iran to Russia.”

Nahvi is also listed on the boards of other Iranian companies that appear to be part of the same Safiran group, including Safiran Freight and Cargo Services, which continues to advertise shipping services to Canada online. According to Iran’s corporate governance rules, only shareholders of private companies can be board members, although they are not required to disclose the number of shares they own.

Canadian sanctions on Safiran Airport Services do not extend to corporate entities to corporate officers and directors or their families.

Critics say listing only companies limits the effectiveness of the sanctions.

“From the point of view of financial warfare, it is obvious that if you go after the entity, you go after the executive, you go after the board and you go after the families of the executive and board members,” said Saeed Ghasseminejad. , an Iran sanctions expert at the Washington, DC-based think-tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“If you don’t follow high-level executives and board members, it’s very easy for them to create front companies and participate in operations. So [sanctioning the corporate entity] create problems, but it is not difficult to move and change the operation under another name.”

In Canada, Nahvi is listed as one of the three directors of Solabest Development Inc., an active company registered in British Columbia. In his company registration documents, Nahvi listed a condo unit in Vancouver as his address.

Solabest Development Inc. was incorporated in BC in November 2021 and filed its most recent annual return in November 2022, according to company records.

On November 1, 2022, a person named Ensieh Nahvi was recently listed as one of the three directors of Solabest Development Inc.

Fifth Estate have seen a copy of Ensieh Nahvi’s Iranian identity booklet which includes his father Mohammad Bagher’s first name and national ID number, which matches the national ID number for Mohammad Bagher Nahvi in ​​the Safiran company documents.

According to BC property records, Ensieh Nahvi’s title to a five-bedroom home in North Vancouver was purchased on Nov. 8, 2022, for nearly $4.9 million. Records show Nahvi paid cash for the property.

Vancouver real estate agent who has a listing for the house against Fifth Estate that Mohammad Nahvi himself came to see before buying.

‘My own assets’

In a phone interview, Ensieh Nahvi denied she was his daughter, saying only that they were siblings. He said he comes from a wealthy family in Iran, owns real estate there and bought a North Vancouver house with his own money.

[The house] it’s my own asset,” said Ensieh Fifth Estate in Persia. “I have a house to sell. I sent all the documents to the bank.”

He said his family had no connection with the Islamic Republic government and asked Mohammad Nahvi about Safiran.

Mohammad Nahvi did not respond to multiple emails, calls and messages requesting an interview for this story.

The government said it was ‘judicious’ in its sanctions

In the email to Fifth EstateGAC said that the federal government “is fair in its approach to imposing sanctions, both on individuals/entities and on countries” and that sanctions prohibit Canadians inside and outside of Canada from having transactions with Safiran.

“If we really want our sanctions regime to be effective, we need to go beyond symbolism and we need to think about how to use sanctions in a way that forces Iranian officials and those associated with the regime to change their behavior,” Kaveh Shahrooz said. , Iranian-Canadian Lawyer and Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“Simply sanctioning the company will not achieve it. What we need to do is put pressure on the people who run the company to change their behavior.”

In reaction to the Iranian regime’s crackdown on human rights protesters last fall, the Canadian government introduced a series of sanctions against Iranian individuals and entities. The measures announced on October 7 also provide $76 million to “strengthen Canada’s capacity to implement sanctions and ensure that we can move more quickly to freeze and seize the assets of sanctioned individuals.”

At the time, the GAC said it was creating a special sanctions bureau within the department and providing additional support to the RCMP to investigate and identify assets and gather evidence.

Brandon Silver, an international human rights lawyer with the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in Montreal, said Fifth Estate that current Canadian legislation is broad enough to allow the government to take meaningful action against corporate officers and their family members. This is due to the government’s willingness to extend sanctions to individuals.

“If there is Canadian complicity by allowing our markets, our banking institutions, our economy to be exploited by these companies and the individuals who allow these companies to thrive, we have to stop it,” Silver said.

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Similar sanctions in the US

Like Canada, the US has not extended sanctions against Safiran’s officers and directors or their families.

Iran sanctions expert Ghasseminejad believes lawyers at the US Treasury Department make the call on how far to extend sanctions on a case-by-case basis.

“The legal question is to say you want to go after the council – can you prove that the council is responsible for its actions or not in court?” said Fifth Estate.

“Board members in general, may not know everything – the day-to-day activities. But in many countries I think they are responsible for the main decisions that the company makes.”

The US Treasury did not respond to inquiries from Fifth Estate.

Over the past few months, the US government has continued to sanction Iranian entities and individuals for the production and shipment of deadly drones to Russia.

On January 6, the US Treasury Department sanctioned six executives and board members of Iran’s Qods Aviation Industries for the production of drones used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Recently, US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sulivan, said that Iranian drones may “contribute to widespread war crimes” in Ukraine.

“The right way to do it physically makes physical interdiction a challenge,” Sullivan said at a media conference in Mexico City on January 9, referring to the delivery of drones from Iran to Russia.

“But we will not stop in various ways to disrupt this type of military cooperation that continues and continue to increase the cost for Iran – in the court of public opinion, in terms of economic pressure – to decide to go down the path where its weapons are used to kill citizens civilians in Ukraine and trying to plunge the city into cold and darkness.”