A technical file that summarizes the level of risk, connections, sanctions. A profile that led Paraguayan intelligence to determine that the person they have registered as Gholamreza Ghasemi is “connected to designated/sanctioned entities that are assisting the Iranian regime in terrorist activities”holds the reserved information you accessed Clarion. The Argentine justice awaits information from American intelligence to find out if it is the Iranian pilot who is being held in our country.
The federal justice of Lomas de Zamora seeks to confirm the identity of Ghasemi, the pilot of the Boeing 747 that was seized 72 hours ago. Like the other 18 crew members, the Iranian national is prohibited from leaving the country.
Gholamreza Ghasemi, the Iranian pilot of the plane held in Ezeiza who would be linked to terrorist groups
When the prosecutor Cecilia Incardona promoted the opening of the criminal file, she gave rise to the statement of the DAIA, in which she warned about the possibility that the pilot is linked to the elite Iranian Quds forces, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Although the Migration Directorate affirms that the passport presented by the pilot of the aircraft passed the security checks and does not register restrictions, and that the government affirms that it is a namesake of the person who worked in several airlines linked to the Quds force , Judge Federico Villena requested information from US intelligence agencies to determine the identity of the Iranian.
But this Friday, those doubts received an answer from Asunción. When asked if the pilot Gholamreza Ghasemi was linked to Iran’s Al Quds troops, the Paraguayan Intelligence Minister, Stephen Aquinomaintained that “indeed it is so”, and ruled out that it is a homonym.
The Paraguayan intelligence area has a file on Ghasemi to which he agreed Clarion from secret intelligence sources. There it is detailed that the airline “Qeshm Fars Air -in which the pilot reported- It is managed by Iranian Revolutionary Guardsman Gholamreza Ghasemi.”.
For the Paraguayan intelligence agency, this airline represents a “high alert: entity affiliated with designated/sanctioned/illegal entities.” The security risk level assigned in the report is 89%.
What else was recorded in the report? “This entity is connected with designated/sanctioned entities that are assisting the Iranian regime in terrorist activities and development of WMD” (weapons of mass destruction).
“Iran, North Korea and other countries are subject to blockades and sanctions applied for the development of this type of weapon and as part of the system to prevent money laundering, financing of terrorism and financing of this type of weapon,” they explained to Clarion sources with access to the Paraguayan report.
Before Aquino’s statement, Paraguay had already warned the countries of the region - including Argentina - about the alleged irregular activities of the Venezuelan-Iranian plane that remains held in Ezeiza.
In his efforts to free the pilot - who, like the rest of the crew of the hijacked plane, is staying in a hotel in Canning - from the sights of the intelligence agencies of several countries, official sources affirmed this week that it would be a “shareholder of Mahan Air, nothing more”. The data, which had already been detected by the justice system, is not minor, because that Iranian company, owner for fifteen years of the aircraft that the Venezuelan state fleet added on January 23 of this year, is on the list of the Control Office of Foreign Assets (“OFAC”) of the United States Department of the Treasury.
OFAC “administers and enforces trade and economic sanctions based on U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives against selected foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international drug traffickers, those who engage in proliferation-related activities weapons of mass destruction and other threats to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.”
For that US office, Mahan Air would be an operational arm of the Al Quds force, which they consider a division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps specializing in military intelligence operations that the United States considers a terrorist group.
The activity of Iranian airlines Mahan Air and Qeshm Fars Air in Latin America it was also revealed by the Israeli embassy: “these are companies that are dedicated to arms trafficking and the transfer of people and equipment that operate for the Quds Force, which are sanctioned by the United States for being involved in activities terrorists”, ratified their spokesmen.
