Austria is busy selling the jihadists the axe that those jihadists will use to behead them. “Group blasts Austria for Iranian money laundering,” by Benjamin Weinthal for the Jerusalem Post, November 4 (thanks to Maxwell):
BERLIN — A senior aide to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his trips in 2012 to Vienna to circumvent sanctions, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The aide launched a money laundering operation to acquire technology for the Islamic Republic, Dr. Shimon Samuels, the center’s director for international relations, told The Jerusalem Post during a phone interview on Friday.
“Austria is a hub of abuse for money launders. This is not a Jewish or Israeli issue. This is a European issue. This is a weak link in the chain of banking,” Samuels said.
He called on the EU to monitor its member countries and penalize Austria for its failure to enforce Iran sanctions.
Writing in the British Daily Telegraph in late October, foreign affairs correspondent Damien McElroy first reported on the Iranian agent, who is a senior departmental director from Iran’s Center for Innovation and Technology Cooperation. The US Treasury Department has sanctioned both the agent and the Center for Innovation and Technology Cooperation for illicit nuclear proliferation activity.
According to the Telegraph report, “At least two visits this year to Vienna by a senior departmental director have been used to carry out transactions worth millions of euros, according to sources. Western officials confirmed the official is a regular visitor to the Austrian capital and has traveled for extended stays each year since 2007.”
The agent’s network involves deliveries that are “handed to money lenders in Austria, Germany and Italy. Payments from the network have been documented as transfers to accounts as far as Russia and China to pay for goods that are subsequently sent to Iran,” the Telegraph continued….