This plan will probably lead to serious diplomatic difficulties between Germany, the US, and Israel.
According to information available to BILD, the Iranian regime intends to fly 300 million euros in cash from Germany to Iran. The background is that, in the coming months, strict US sanctions against the Iranian financial sector will come into effect. The mullahs are worried that they will run out of cash. Iran’s justification for their plan says that they need the money “to pass it on to Iranian individuals who, when travelling abroad, are dependent on euros in cash due to their lack of access to accepted credit cards”.
American and Israeli intelligence services are alarmed. They are concerned that the cash money will, for instance, be used to finance terrorism. The German government, however, says that German intelligence services have no evidence of this. At the same time, with cash money, there can hardly be any concrete evidence of this kind anyway.
The concrete plan of the Iranians is the following: the “Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank” (European-Iranian Trade Bank) in Hamburg possesses enormous assets that belong to the Iranian regime. The accounts of the mullah bank are managed by the German Bundesbank. The Bundesbank is asked to pay out 300 million euros in cash and to hand them over to representatives of the Iranian regime. They will then transport the money to Iran on board Iranian airplanes.
BILD has learned that the Chancellery, the Foreign Office, and the Ministry of Finance are dealing with this plan at the highest level. The Iranian negotiator is Ali Tarzali, a high-ranking official of the Iranian central bank who is subject to US sanctions.
The fact that the mullah regime has repeatedly used euros or dollars in cash to finance, for example, militias in the Syria war or the terrorist organization Hezbollah and terrorism directed against Israel. This is why Iran’s plan is so controversial and why it antagonizes Israel and the US.
German government circles have confirmed the Iranians’ plan to BILD: “The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin, Bundesanstalt für Finanzleistungsaufsicht) has initiated a review of the bank, based on the Banking and Money Laundering Act”.
