On October 2, the United States transferred roughly 1.1 million rounds of seven.62mm ammunition to the Ukrainian army. The ammunition was seized by the U.S. Central Command Navy from an unflagged vessel within the Arabian Sea en route from Iran to Yemen, the place sanctioned teams corresponding to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are preventing in opposition to the Houthis. Directly supporting the motion. The Department of Justice subsequently filed a civil forfeiture lawsuit in opposition to the confiscated munitions, ensuing within the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordering the switch of possession to the United States on July 20.
“My workplace will proceed to make use of any means accessible to thwart the Revolutionary Guard’s efforts to sow discord,” stated Matthew M. Graves, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. “The switch of those property to the Ukrainian Armed Forces will help an necessary accomplice within the battle in opposition to unjust aggression.”
U.S. Naval Forces Central Command seized the ammunition and different munitions on or about Dec. 1, 2022, in keeping with court docket paperwork within the civil forfeiture case.
The doc alleges a classy plan by the Revolutionary Guards to secretly transport arms and ammunition to organizations against U.S. pursuits.
The authorities’s confiscation motion was half of a bigger investigation into Iran’s arms smuggling community. This community is concerned within the unlawful trafficking of superior standard weapons techniques and elements by sanctioned Iranian entities that straight help the Houthi motion in Yemen and the Iranian regime’s terrorist actions throughout the area. Was.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington Field Office and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) Mid-Atlantic Field Office, with important help from U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in conducting the seizure, had been in a position to uncover a serious Iranian arms smuggling community. He is main the dimensions investigation. .
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stuart D. Allen, Brian P. Hudak, Rajbir S. Datta, and Anna D. Walker of the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney S. Derek Shugart of the National Security Agency’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Division; I filed a grievance relating to this incident. Support from paralegal specialists Brian Rickards and Angela De Falco.