An Iranian national has pleaded guilty in US District Court for the Southern District of New York to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. According to the indictment and guilty plea, Behzad Pourghannad served as the financial guarantor for large carbon fiber transactions, in a scheme whereby he and two co-conspirators worked to obtain carbon fiber from the United States and export it to Iran via third countries during the period from 2007 to 2013, concealing the nature of the cargo and transshipping it through Georgia or Dubai. Carbon fiber can be used in aerospace engineering, missiles and gas centrifuges for enriching uranium.
Pourghannad will be sentenced in December 2019. His two co-conspirators remain at large.