According to the Financial Times, Iran used Santander accounts to avoid international sanctions.

Iran used Lloyds and Santander UK accountstwo largest banks in the United Kingdom, secretly move money around the world as part of a plan to evade sanctions, with the support of Tehran’s intelligence services, as reported by the Financial Times (FT) this Monday. Following the news, Banco Santander shares fell more than 5% on Ibex.

According to a number of documents available to the economic newspaperLloyds and Santander UK provided accounts to British shell companies secretly owned by a sanctioned Iranian petrochemical company.whose headquarters are located near Buckingham Palace in London.

Sources at Santander declined EFE’s request to comment on client matters and assured that the company “complies with its legal and regulatory obligations” and pays “close attention to compliance with regulatory requirements regarding sanctions imposed on third parties.”

The government-controlled Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC) was part of a network that the United States accused of raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force and working with Russian intelligence agencies to raise money for Iranian militias.

The above newspaper indicates that both PCC and its British subsidiary PCC UK have been under US sanctions since November 2018.

According to a series of documents, emails and accounting records, PCC’s UK operation continued to working from an office located in Grosvenor Gardens, in the central London area of ​​Belgravia, using a complex network of objects.

The FT also notes that revelations about Iran’s sanctions-evasion operation in London come after the Royal Air Force recently joined US airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Last week, the UK and US imposed sanctions against what they called a “transnational murder network”.controlled by Iranian intelligence, which targets activists and dissidents, including those in the UK.

Documents seen by the FT show that since falling under US sanctions, the CCP has used companies in the UK to receive funds from Iranian front organizations in China, while hiding its real ownership through “trust agreements” and nominee directors.

One of them, Pisco UK, registered in a mansion in the English county of Surrey. and uses a commercial account in Santander, UK, which is now closed, according to the newspaper.

According to that country’s corporate registry, Pisco UK is wholly owned by a British citizen named Abdollah-Siaouash Fahimi.

However, internal documents, some of which were published online by (Iranian opposition website) WikiIran, show that Pisco is controlled by PCC and Fahimi signed a trust agreement to own the company on his own behalf.

Among other revelations, the FT notes that Fahimi used a PCC email address to correspond with company officials in Tehran and that he was a director of PCC UK from April 2021 to February 2022, according to UK corporate documents.

In 2021, Pisco’s Santander account received a transfer from the Chinese company Black Tulip. which, according to internal PCC records, is another trust company controlled by a PCC employee.

Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department accused Iranian petrochemical companies of using multiple shell companies to evade sanctions by routing their sales through Asia.

Banco Santander has been operating in the UK since 2004, when it acquired Abbey National Bank. and its subsidiary Santander UK, one of the most powerful in the Group, achieved net profit in 2023 of €1,545 million, up 10.8% on 2022.