Two Texas men convicted by a U.S. jury in November of trying to sell Iranian petroleum in violation of sanctions imposed by Washington and of conspiracy to commit money laundering were sentenced on Tuesday to 45 months in prison, the Justice Department said.
China is the world's only major importer of Iranian oil despite sanctions © Mena Today
Two Texas men convicted by a U.S. jury in November of trying to sell Iranian petroleum in violation of sanctions imposed by Washington and of conspiracy to commit money laundering were sentenced on Tuesday to 45 months in prison, the Justice Department said.
Zhenyu Wang, 43, a Chinese citizen, and Daniel Ray Lane, 42, of McKinney, Texas, schemed with co-conspirators to evade U.S. economic sanctions against Iran from July 2019 to February 2020 by facilitating the purchase of sanctioned oil from Iran, masking its origins and then selling it to a refinery in China, the department said in a statement.
Lane was president of privately held Stack Royalties, a Texas-based company that sells oil and gas mineral rights to investment funds and private equity groups.
Lane's attorney, Paul Hetznecker, told Reuters late last year that the case was based on undercover government agents who offered Lane "millions of dollars in profits" if he took part in the scheme, after initially rebuffing their approaches. The attorney had called the case "an outrageous example of government overreach."
The pair were charged, along with three others, in 2020 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. At least two co-conspirators have since pleaded guilty, court records showed.
China is the world's only major importer of Iranian oil despite sanctions that former U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally reimposed on Tehran's petroleum exports in 2018 after withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers.
By Kanishka Singh
US Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and James Lankford (R-OK) introduced legislation Thursday that would authorize up to $1.2 billion in security assistance to Lebanon over five years, with part of the funding conditioned on Beirut's progress toward a state monopoly on arms and the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis launched ballistic missiles and drones at displacement camps and residential neighbourhoods in the city of Marib on Friday, killing two people and wounding 14, state news agency SABA reported, citing local authorities.
Iran said on Saturday that a deal with Oman on control of the Strait of Hormuz was close but would not be enough to free up the waterway, and the United Arab Emirates said Iran had hit another ship there.
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