FoxNews today posted an "exclusive" story about the Russian billionaire
Mikhail Fridman (of
Alfa Group) and his possible relationship with Iran. The article claims that he is a "key figure" in selling nuclear technology to the Islamic Republic of Iran and now may be purchasing nearly half of the Iranian telecommunications company Iraphone through a Kazakh telecom company.
An excerpt from the
article on Fridman, Russian, and Iran:
Quote:
Ties between Russia and Iran lie at the center of the crisis surrounding Iran's secretive nuclear program, which includes a massive effort at uranium enrichment, a critical source of nuclear explosives. That crisis is sure to be discussed by President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in their two-day Kennebunkport meeting over the weekend.
Iran has been sanctioned twice by the United Nations Security Council for failing to halt its enrichment programs, but those sanctions have had little or no effect — and a major reason is Russia.
In addition to selling Iran a $1 billion nuclear plant that is now under construction in the province of Bushehr, Russia has become a major supplier of conventional arms and aircraft to Iran. And, since December, Russia has succeeded in watering down both sets of U.N. sanctions against Tehran – with American and British officials now back at their drawing boards drafting a third.
“We should find solutions that would not violate Iran's right to use modern technologies,” Russia's President Vladimir Putin said a month ago.
Some of those technologies have been aided by Alfa’s banking arm, which serves as the primary financial agent for the nuclear power project. A year ago, Alfa made a huge loan – on “privileged terms,” according to Ukraine's government – to finance a state-owned Ukrainian company’s ability to build and sell aircraft to countries that include Iran.
And those financial ties apparently extend further than Alfa wants the world to know.
FOX News has obtained documents that lay out a secret effort, codenamed “1979 Project”, over the past nine months by Altimo, the $20 billion telecom arm of Alfa Group, to purchase a controlling share in an Iranian mobile phone company called Iraphone.
The documents show a concerted effort on the part of both buyers and sellers to keep the deal a secret, at the same time the conglomerate is trying to expand its markets — and its respectability — in the West. The paper trail shows that that the transaction was being funneled through a shell company called Amigo — an entity owned by Sky Mobile of Kyrgyzstan, which was itself purchased by Altimo last June.
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By the way, FoxNews is certainly not my favorite news source, but it does occasionally post some interesting stories like this recent article by a
former CIA agent.
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