This entire thread is a masterclass on how a corrupt country can brainwash it’s citizens into accepting violence against others on the whims of a stock portfolio.
Tankie loves their Putin daddy. Or I guess it’s probably Xi these days. Iran and China can suck my left nut
Tankies hate Putin. Fascists and capitalist aggressors love him. Which are you?
This is the dumbest false rhetoric I’ve ever read. Congrats I guess.
So “tankies love putin daddy” is proper rhetoric to you?
Congrats I guess
What? In the article it does state, that the company had to pay for the significant expenses of bringing the ship to the US. So it was likely seized somewhere, where the US has no jurisdication. This is just piracy and it is in line with US crimes like murdering an Iranian diplomat, they invited to negotiations.
Critizising these blatant crime sby the US, that are similiar to what China is trying to pull in the Sea around East Asia has nothing to do, with being pro Putin or pro China.
But it is no wonder, that China and Russia can muster support around the world, despite the shit they pull, if the US is still acting high and mighty, while being drenched in blood.
Piracy is only bad when Asian people do it.
Also, piracy didn’t occur here. It was a ship owned by a US company who was served a court order, admitted guilt, and sailed to the US…
It is an American company. That is American jurisdiction. The fuck you talking about tankie?
WRONG
Thanks for demonstrating the violence of American capitalists and the value of stock portfolios over basic right and wrong.
Fucking pirate
I’d point out that this ship was owned by American capitalists trying to boost the value of their stock portfolio, but I think that might cause your head to explode.
That was exactly my point.
Well then your point no longer makes any sense if that’s who you were referring to.
The cargo wasn’t american and the company was owned by an american equity company. By that logic half of the US is under chinese jurisdication, because it is owned by chinese companies.
Also nice, that instead of interacting with half of what i said your immediate go to is to insult me as tankie. China is pulling a lot of shit, but if that is the best the US can measure itself by, then the US is just incredibly pathetic.
The contraband cargo is now the subject of a civil forfeiture action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The United States’ forfeiture complaint alleges that the oil aboard the vessel is subject to forfeiture based on U.S. terrorism and money laundering statutes.
The complaint alleges a scheme involving multiple entities affiliated with Iran’s IRGC and the IRGC-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to covertly sell and transport Iranian oil to a customer abroad. Participants in the scheme attempted to disguise the origin of the oil using ship-to-ship transfers, false automatic identification system reporting, falsified documents and other means. The complaint further alleges that the charterer of the vessel used the U.S. financial system to facilitate the transportation of Iranian oil
I called you a tankie cause your blatantly being a goof about it.
The company’s vessel, Suez Rajan Limited, transported the contraband to the US and “incurred the significant expenses associated with the vessel’s voyage to the United States,” according to the DOJ.
Here.
Literally just try reading the fucking article instead of acting high and mighty without any effort because you want to be right.
Where does it state blood was spilled? If the US seized the ship out in the open ocean (piracy), how would the company have incurred any expenses on the journey to the US? They wouldn’t be the ones piloting the ship.
What? What? You aren’t even making sens and not talking as if you read the article or understand what is being talked about here.
They told a ship of an American finance holding company to get it’s butt to their borders or suffer consequences and made the company pay for fees, and it’s own gas usage.
I quoted the part of the article where it says they piloted the ship back to the US? Also you could still have the company pay all costs associated. So many people in here who don’t read.
Yes it’s clear people don’t read. For example, when someone is asked to provide evidence to the claim that “blood was spilled” or “piracy occurred,” people respond with a quote about the company “incurring expenses” as if that is in any way relevant or satisfies the question.
Are you responding to the wrong comment?
It would be better for the US if we didn’t sanction Iran, actually. But it might be better for China that we are. We are sanctioning against human rights violations, not just cuz muh money.
US sanctions are an attack in their people, not their governments. It’s a lousy policy and never fucking works as intended.
This is like arguing you shouldn’t get prison time after committing a murder because you have kids and they’ll struggle without you around. These sanctions can be more targeted like in cases of Russian oligarchs having their properties seized. In this specific case, a US company was transporting oil in violation of US law and were served a court order. Iran is free to send their own tankers to China and Russia. I doubt the US would blow one of them up.
No, see, sanctions also keep those kids from being able to stand up against the regime. The leaders are still getting everything they need; the people are not. Your analogy was bad.
Well I have to agree they target the people and have unintended consequences. BUT I disagree that they don’t hurt the rich and powerful.
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Just like here, the rich absorb 90% of the new wealth created. If wealth isn’t being created, they lack power in capital to exert.
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We have recently sanctioned Iranian individuals. This means they have trouble leaving their country, and any trade with them is illegal, which again reduces their bargaining power - so that actors like China can swoop in and take advantage of Iran.
The iranian citizens are standing up and revolting. Iran has seen a lot of direct action over this 40 year history during sanctions. The idea that we are keeping evil people in power is new to me and feels really abstract. In my mind the only way we are making the situation worse is by increasing poverty in Iran. But are sanctions also stopping political upheaval, and how?
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you’re really giving credit to the CIA on this lemmy thread? alright, I guess
The world’s most heavily militarized bully can’t help but interfere with other sovereign countries businesses.
It’s like no one reads the stories anymore. There was no military involvement here. The company was notified through legal channels they they were in violation and willingly relinquished the ship/oil.
We are pirate and rob others
Oh fuck… that seems serious
So…will they seize the companies assets and arrest the CEO for violating the sanctions?
Because that’s how you stop this shit.
You want the United States to arrest someone in Greece for transporting oil from Iran to China? I don’t see how it’s any of our fucking business.
The company is based in Los Angeles you knob
No. A LA based private equity company technically owned the boat at the time of transfer (they do not own it anymore, it’s been sold to the Greek company). That US based company is seemingly off Scott free in this situation and the Greek company is the one being fined and sanctioned.
AT THE TIME OF THE TRANSFER
Watch as he desperately reaches for straws!!
You literally said this yourself and then ignore that you did lmfao.
US jurisdiction, just cause they tried musical chairs or whatever is just nonsense of them trying to pull some shit. Case closed sis.
So instead of putting the US capital investors in prison and seizing the assets of the equity firm, they seize the oil and fuck the greek company.
That is judiciary colonialism
Seeing how they pled guilty and paid a 2.5 Million dollar fine and 3 years probation, I guess it was our fucking business.
They plead guilty to violating the IEEPA, which is a law we passed that says if we declare an emergency we can regulate whatever international commerce we feel like. The US being being wealthy enough that companies choose to comply so they can still have our business doesn’t make it right.
Seizing over a hundred million of oil is a pretty big ouch to any business
Not for the shipping company. It’s not their oil. The Iranians can ask the shipping company for compensation, which they could easily refuse and there isn’t much recourse that the Iranians would have. The Chinese could demand compensation but if the company again refuses or claims insolvency or whatever, it’s easier for the Chinese to just stiff the Iranians with payment instead.
For business sure. But what about consequences for the people who made the decisions?
A dream that won’t come true, these people only see this as part of the risk of doing business and will try again in the same way, hoping to not get caught, or will find a legal loophole.
So privateer is a legitimate profession again?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The US government seized nearly 1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil allegedly bound for China, according to newly unsealed court documents and a statement released by the Department of Justice on Friday.
“This is the first-ever criminal resolution involving a company that violated sanctions by facilitating the illicit sale and transport of Iranian oil,” according to the DOJ.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, allegedly shipped more than 980,000 barrels of oil, the press release stated.
The DOJ claimed that “multiple entities affiliated with Iran’s IRGC and the IRGC-Qods Force” were involved in the scheme to “disguise the origin of the oil” and illegally sell it to China, according to court documents.
The court filings also show allegations that “profits from oil sales support the IRGC’s full range of malign activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for terrorism and both domestic and international human rights abuses.”
In April, the company operating the ship carrying the oil, Empire Navigation, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The original article contains 239 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 23%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is egregious big government overreach impeding business and free trade
Username checks out
The free market of ideas decided fuck around with human rights and find out you’ve made a powerful enemy.
this is the kind of badassery i want to read about my Government getting up to… fuck the CCP any way we can, boys…
There is a lot of misreporting and misunderstanding about this. OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control) exists within Treasury and is responsible for enforcing sanctions usually created by executive order (“EO”), or very rarely, Congress. EOs and OFAC interpretation are very specific: some sanctions, such as the ones on the export of Iranian crude/products, are explicitly extraterritorial. Meaning, the US reserves the right to come after you no matter what country you are a citizen of or where you company is domiciled. It’s very rare for them to try this one anyone who doesn’t have US nexus since there is not much practically speaking they can do, but they could in theory. OFAC has, no pun intended, FAQs for all of this easily found at their site.
Now, this case was extra stupid. Oaktree is the single biggest PE investor in shipping, going in heavy starting a bit before the financial crash and going in really big with Eagle Bulk c. 2012 or so. Oaktree is, as stated, a US company, but that wasn’t the main reason: they did this transaction in USD. Which was stupid, but having met the bastards at Empire a few times, I can say they are not the brightest bunch (as as far as I understand they are doing most of this kind of work in EUR with some shady banks nowadays anyway). Anyway any transaction in USD goes through the SWIFT system (which is why kicking Russia out of it was such a massive deal). This means there was simply no way this was not going to get eventually scanned since banks have repurposed their AML programs into sanctions programs or subscribe to sanctions-specific services like PoleStar’s PupleTrac (what my company uses) or Windward or Lloyd’s, etc. Now the dirty secret is that the banks don’t really understand movement data that well, but Empires has done this (and Venezuela) so often for so long, someone at Treasury probably said, “OK, since we got Oaktree all up in this, let’s make an example of of these guys to scare others away from these trades.”
[spoiler alert: it did not scare others away from these trades and most folks estimate there are about 1,000 large tankers that form a so called “Dark Fleet” trading in Iran, Venezuela, and now Russia since both crude and product have broken the price cap at all Russian export locations. You cam make about 40% more shipping such cargos than legal ones.]
Anyway, I digress, The the point is that OFAC doesn’t care if you have US nexus; it just makes you easier to catch if you do. Source: I am the head of credit and compliance for a large oil company that works closely with the shipping industry.
OFAC stole a wire transfer to my landlord. I assume it’s because he has a Middle Eastern-sounding name.
They provided me a case number and I mailed in the forms I found online to dispute the seizure. They sent me a letter saying that they had no record of that case. I realized the futility of fighting the government over a couple of grand and switched to depositing money orders into his account and let it go. Created a lot of extra effort (not that it was difficult, just tedious) on my end.
OFAC is a criminal organization.
No shit it’s a criminal organization.
Now I’m curious to know how a head of compliance for a oil company found their way to kbin.social.
Lemmy isn’t just programmers and cryptobros fyi. Lots of people have interesting jobs and hardly anyone works 100% of the time. Gotta shitpost somewhere.
US Navy submariner checking in!
Eh, for one we are hyper specialized oil company so not quite as evil as your run of the mill ones. We sell fuel to ships, so unless everyone suddenly agrees they don’t need the 90% of the world’s commodities and manufactured goods anymore, you gotta use ships. And in a moderate defense, ships by far the least polluting way to transport stuff by ton/mile.
Me personally I’m a big old lefty, even here within the EU’s context (where the American Democrats would be a center-right party).I just fell into this role and happened to be good at it. My function is far too niche for any green energy projects. At the core of what we do and the bit I supervise, we are basically providing short term liquidity to shipping companies, since you sell fuel on unsecured credit. Believe me I’ve looked (and keep looking) at green and adjacent spaces.
And we wonder why they hate us.
How dare we take a stand against genocide.
The US commited genocide in Iraq and helped genocide in Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cambodia…
The US claiming to take a stand against genocide is laughable at best.
It is completely cynical though, because the US still buys plenty of products that are made in chinese labor camps. It is crazy how much kool-aid americans drink and how deep they managed to put their heads up their own ass.
It is crazy how much kool-aid americans drink and how deep they managed to put their heads up their own ass.
… You said in an article where a US ship willingly returned oil to a US dock because it was in violation of US trade sanctions. Could you please at least read up on the event before you decide to act high and mighty?
We? You’re posting on a nz server
are you from mali?
Wait til you find out about this fun little thing called “federation”
So countries aren’t sovereign now?
Edit: I can’t find any info. What genocide?
I think the proper word here is “liberated”
The legal grounds: The oil was shipped by a US company in violation of US law. American companies can’t do business with an organisation that the US government has designated as a terrorist organisation. Thus American authorities siezed the ship and its cargo.
I am proud that America is finally doing something about this illegal oil trade. We have always turned a blind eye, and now we are actually forcing our hand to keep Iran from becoming a potential world-ending regime with no human rights for Iranians.
What is the legal excuse for this piracy?
Try reading the articles and comments.
Meh … I had hoped you would summarize for me
It’s an American ship. They can’t transport Iranian oil for the same reason they can’t transport cocaine. It’s illegal.
The DoJ told the company they were breaking the law. The company admitted wrongdoing and told the captain to turn around and bring the oil to the US. By handing over the oil, the company hopes their fines will be reduced.
No naval forces were involved. No piracy, no interception at sea. Just a company trying to get out of hot water after it was busted
Alright, now it makes more sense, thank you for the kind explanation!
If you don’t wanna read, but you wanna comment, that’s really poor behavior. That’s unfair to everyone else.
Apologies, I read the headline though …
they are enforcing sanctions
The company plead guilty to violating US law and agreed to forfeit the oil.
I see, thank you for being so kind to explain!
