Iran Used 5,000 Shell Companies to Import $2.3 Billion in Military Goods Despite Sanctions

US strikes damaged Iran’s weapons factories, yet Tehran continued securing military supplies through a hidden network. More than 5,000 entities have been linked to Iran’s Ministry of Defence, forming a procurement system that operated during the war with the US and Israel.

One agency alone imported $2.3 billion worth of goods over eighteen months. The cargo included rocket-fuel ingredients, detonators, aircraft components and hundreds of heavy trucks capable of serving as mobile missile launchers.

“How does the IRGC replenish its missile and drone stocks while firing thousands of them?”

Shipment records list China, Russia, Germany and the United Arab Emirates as origins. Goods arrived by land, sea and air, allowing Iran to replenish missile and drone stocks despite a US naval blockade and Western sanctions.

The companies carry names beginning with “MOD” followed by five or six digits and share the Tehran address of the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics headquarters. They list February 11, 1979, the date of Iran’s Islamic Revolution victory, as their establishment date.

Corporate records indicate most were actually created in 2013, when sanctions squeezed Iranian oil exports and pressured the currency. Some agencies are linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and business conglomerates known as bonyads controlled by Iran’s elite.

The investigation was based on thousands of Iranian banking and state documents, corporate registration data and import records. Reuters conducted the research together with 240 Analytics, a consultancy analysing threats facing Washington and Tel Aviv.