On Sunday, May 25, ILNA, a state-affiliated news agency, reported that officials from Iran’s regime Civil Aviation Organization had purchased two Airbus aircraft from China for $116 million. This comes despite the fact that the actual value of each plane is less than $30 million.
The receipt of significant kickbacks and personal profits by regime officials from secret deals under the pretext of bypassing Western sanctions has repeatedly been highlighted in both domestic and international media over the past decade. The most prominent example is the accumulation of legendary wealth by Ali Shamkhani—an advisor to regime leader Ali Khamenei—and his sons through covert sales of Iranian oil.
On Saturday, May 24, the official news of the arrival of two Airbus A330 aircraft into the fleet of Iran’s airline was published. In April, Mehrdad Bazrpash, the former Minister of Roads and Urban Development, had claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that the purchase of the two aircraft had been finalized under the previous administration.
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But now, ILNA reports that “the preparations for adding these two aircraft to the country’s aviation fleet began two years ago by an obscure Chinese company called Hakan Energy through a barter deal involving Iranian oil,” adding: “The key point is that the Chinese traded these aircraft, each worth less than $30 million, for $116 million worth of Iranian oil!”
The report continues, stating that the Chinese company Hakan Enerji has not settled a significant portion of its debt to Iran, because during the previous administration, in return for purchasing Iranian oil, the company became involved in projects such as the second-phase expansion of Khomeini Airport, valued at $2.5 billion. At the time, experts considered this figure astronomical for the outlined project. Hakan Enerji ultimately abandoned the project after the groundbreaking ceremony.
It was also planned that Hakan Energy, through oil barter deals, would take part in rail projects, purchase wagons, electrify the Tehran-Mashhad railway, and buy aircraft, but none of these initiatives came to fruition. Meanwhile, the import of 55 various aircraft through Hakan Energy was another part of the agreement, but after two years, only two of those planes have been added to Iran Air’s national fleet—and at double the price.
In recent days and weeks, Farzaneh Sadegh, the Minister of Roads and Urban Development in Iran’s regime, has faced widespread criticism for a 10 billion rial (approximately $12,000) trip she and her family took to Kish Island at government expense, as well as for signing a 610 trillion rial (approximately $734.9 million) contract with Babak Zanjani’s company. Zanjani is widely known as one of Iran’s most notorious economic criminals.
However, ILNA reported that the Airbus aircraft import contract was signed during the tenure of Mehrdad Bazrpash as Minister of Roads and Urban Development, in the final days of his time in the previous (thirteenth) administration. In a recommendation to Farzaneh Sadegh, Bazrpash claimed that he had “opened the path for aircraft acquisition and the modernization of the aviation fleet so that, instead of the government importing planes, the private sector could import more aircraft using better methods.”
Although senior officials of Iran’s regime claim that economic sanctions by the United States and its allies have plunged millions of Iranians into extreme poverty, reports like this reveal that a circle of regime-linked managers and brokers—affiliated with security and military institutions—have amassed astronomical wealth from the very heart of the sanction’s crisis.
In the latest case of aircraft imports, a corrupt structure legitimized under the pretext of “circumventing sanctions” has once again turned into an opportunity to plunder Iran’s national resources. Experts say that under normal conditions, purchasing used Airbus aircraft for under $30 million each was entirely feasible. However, under sanctions and in the absence of transparency, the deal was executed through oil barter at double the price—meaning the main profits go into the pockets of intermediaries and power-linked institutions.
Since the early 2010s, when oil sanctions on Iran intensified, institutions like the IRGC’s Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarters, the Executive Headquarters of Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), and other quasi-private foundations have, under the guise of resisting external pressure, effectively become the main players in covert oil trade and foreign currency transfers. This process not only led to systemic corruption but also created a class of “sanctions profiteers” who benefit from the continuation of sanctions and use their influence within the country’s decision-making structure to prevent any cancellation or transparency of such operations.
