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21:25 GMT
WASHINGTON, July 19 (KUNA) -- An Iranian national Mahin Mojtahedzadeh (Mahin), 74, pleaded guilty Friday "to conspiring to unlawfully export gas turbine parts from the United States to Iran," the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.
The DOJ said in a statement that Mahin pleaded guilty "to one count of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations."
It added that "she admitted that she was the President and Managing Director of ETCO-FZC (ETCO).
It indicated that "ETCO is a supplier of spare and replacement turbine parts for power generation companies in the Middle East, including Iran."
She also admitted that from 2013 through 2017, she worked with companies in Canada and Germany "to violate and evade US sanctions against Iran, by having these companies first acquire more than USD three million dollarsآ’ worth of turbine parts from two distributors in Saratoga County, New York."
"When the US parts arrived in Canada and Germany, respectively, these companies and Mahin then arranged for the parts to be re-shipped to ETCOآ’s customers in Iran," it noted.
The DOJ stressed "at all times, US law prohibited the export and re-export of US-origin turbine parts to Iran without a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which neither Mahin nor her co-conspirators possessed."
Mahin faces up to 20 years in prison, as well as a fine of up to USD one million, when she is sentenced in November 2019. Two of Mahinآ’s co-conspirators have previously pleaded guilty. (end)
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