Defendants confess to transferring tens of thousands of US dollars to Khamenei's office
The US Department of Justice announced that the defendants confessed to transferring tens of thousands of US dollars to Iran, including to Khamenei's office.
The United States Department of Justice, while referring to the confession of "Muzamal Zaidi" and "Asim Mojtaba Naqvi", announced that these two citizens from Houston, Texas, conspired to violate US sanctions against the Islamic Republic and transferred tens of thousands of US dollars to Iran, including to the family of Ali Khamenei.
According to court documents, in 2018, Muzammil Zaidi received permission from several mujtahids to collect khums from Muslims and, together with Asim Mujtaba Naqvi, collected funds from December 2018 to 2019 under the pretext of sending aid to victims of the war in Yemen.
They transferred thousands of dollars from the United States to Iran through their friends, relatives, and family members, and in order to avoid interference from U.S. border agents, they transferred less than $10,000 per person. According to U.S. Treasury reports, they transferred the dollars to Iran through pilgrims traveling to Iraq and then to Ali Khamenei’s office, with only one of these transfers involving a group of 25 people who transferred the funds directly to Ali Khamenei’s office.
Asim Mojtaba and Muzammil Zaidi have confessed to their crimes, and Muzammil Zaidi's sentence is scheduled to be issued on August 13th and Asim Mojtaba's sentence is scheduled to be issued on October 1st.
