Russia reportedly sent nearly 5 tons of banknotes worth $2.5 billion to Iran back in 2018. Some 34 shipments of cash, each containing banknotes worth between $57 million and $115 million, were allegedly transported by train and ship to the Central Bank of Iran.
Journalists at the U.K.’s Telegraph, cited by Do Rzeczy, discovered customs documents and bank details for the secret transfers made through the Russian state-owned Probsvyazbank.
It would mean the shipments happened just after Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Tehran during his first presidential term, with Russia providing Iran with financial liquidity when the ayatollahs’ regime was excluded from the SWIFT international banking system.
Probsvyazbank had previously become an unofficial lender to the Russian arms sector. It was headed by Pyotr Fradkov, son of former Russian Prime Minister and head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Mikhail Fradkov.
The documents show that the cash was sent through the Russian trade corridor running across the Caspian Sea, first likely by train from Moscow to the port of Astrakhan, then by ship to the Iranian port of Amirabad, and from there again by rail to Tehran.
The revelation of Moscow’s secret support comes as Trump is threatening the authorities in Tehran with military intervention, citing the regime’s violence against protesters in early January.
The largest protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, some sources put the number of those killed by Iran’s military and security forces between 6,000 and 30,000.
