Defendants Confess to Transferring Tens of Thousands of Dollars to Khamenei’s Office
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the confession of defendants regarding the transfer of tens of thousands of U.S. dollars to Iran, including to the office of Khamenei.
The U.S. Department of Justice, citing the confessions of “Mozmel Zeidi” and “Asim Mujtaba Naqvi,” announced that these two Houston, Texas residents conspired to violate U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic and transferred tens of thousands of U.S. dollars to Iran, including to the office of Ali Khamenei.
According to court documents, “Mozmel Zeidi” received permission from several grand jurists in 2018 to collect khums from Muslims, and together with “Asim Mujtaba Naqvi” from December 2018 to 2019, they collected funds under the pretext of sending aid to victims of war in Yemen.
They transferred thousands of dollars from the United States to Iran through friends, relatives, and family members, and to prevent interference by U.S. border officials, each person transferred less than 10,000 dollars. According to U.S. Treasury reports, they transferred the aforementioned dollars through pilgrims traveling to Iraq to Iran and then to the office of Ali Khamenei, with only one of these transfers made by a group of 25 people who directly transferred the funds to Ali Khamenei’s office.
Asim Mujtaba and Mozmel Zeidi confessed to their crimes, and Mozmel Zeidi’s sentence is scheduled to be issued on August 13 and Asim Mujtaba’s sentence on October 1.
