Giovanni Pardi

Dallas agents ground helicopter believed to be on way to Iran

Published: 13 December 2009 02:36 AM

Updated: 26 November 2010 03:31 PM

Federal agents in Dallas have grounded a helicopter that they say Italian aircraft brokers were planning to ship from North Texas to Iran in violation of U.S. trade sanctions.

The fate of the $8 million chopper, sitting in a Bell hangar in Arlington, is in limbo while federal agents untangle an international web of circumstances that has already resulted in two other U.S.-manufactured helicopters entering Iran.

Agents believe that the aircraft are being used for civilian purposes - to ferry offshore oil workers around - but at least one of them is equipped with sensitive night vision and autopilot capabilities, which are subject to strict U.S. controls.

Both helicopters were bought from a Mexican company and made pit stops in North Texas before heading to Italy, then Iran, documents show.

But investigators have found no evidence that any Americans had a hand in the final leg of the helicopters' trip, so no criminal charges have been filed.

The investigation is an example of the difficulties U.S. authorities encounter enforcing export control laws meant to keep sought-after American technology and hardware out of the hands of countries such as Iran. The country has been subject to sanctions for more than a decade because it sponsors international Islamic terrorism.

The seizure of a helicopter bound for Iran is "a unique circumstance" locally, said George Richardson, special agent in charge of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security office in Dallas. "This is driven by economics."

The U.S. has barred trade with Iran since 1995, but smuggling is a constant worry for authorities.

"We don't want technology to go to Iran regardless of whether it will be used militarily or by civilian businesses," said Kenneth Wainstein, the Justice Department's former assistant attorney general for national security in Washington. Wainstein initiated a crackdown on export violations in 2007.

"We don't want American businesses engaged in trade with a regime whose policies are antithetical to our national interests," he said.

Foreign companies, however, are not subject to U.S. law. And foreign companies with U.S. ties can use loopholes in the law and regulations to legally sell American-made goods to countries under export bans such as Iran and China. What happened in North Texas is the subject of not only a federal criminal investigation but also a lawsuit.

In spring 2008, the Italian company Tiber Aviation bought three Bell 412 helicopters from a company called Helivan in Mexico for about $22 million.

Helivan, which provides transportation for the Mexican government's oil company, Pemex, was leasing two of the helicopters from Bell in Tarrant County and, according to Bell, was not authorized to sell them. One is the helicopter that was later detained in North Texas.

The ownership question is the subject of a pending lawsuit filed in a Fort Worth federal court.

Rather than ship the helicopters from Mexico, Tiber arranged for all three helicopters to be flown to North Texas, where they would be packaged and then sent overseas.

Tiber used Panalpina Inc., a shipping company at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, to arrange for shipment of the first two helicopters through North Texas to Italy. Panalpina was about to ship the third when Tiber's pilot asked them to quote him a price to ship to Kish Island, Iran.

Panalpina declined and contacted the Dallas Commerce Department office, said Robert Ernest, deputy general counsel for Panalpina, which is based in Switzerland.

"We cooperated, and continue to cooperate, with the U.S. Department of Commerce," he said.

During their investigation, Commerce agents uncovered information showing that Tiber partnered with another Italian firm, Italiana Elicotteri, to get the helicopters to Iranian buyers.

Italiana Elicotteri, agents found, used Panalpina's Luxembourg office to ship the helicopters from Italy to Iran.

Ernest acknowledges that Panalpina's Luxembourg office arranged the shipment from Italy to Iran but says this was only done after getting appropriate approvals from Italian authorities as required by its compliance program. The Luxembourg office was not provided with information on the helicopters' origins, he said.

They were "identified by the customer as of Mexican origin, from Italy to Iran," Ernest said. "This way it was not possible for [the Luxembourg office] to realize that the helicopters ... were indeed the ones previously sent from the United States to Italy."

Commerce detained the third remaining helicopter on Oct. 10, 2008, from a Decatur aircraft company Tiber was using to help in the shipping.

Tiber has denied it intended to ship any of the helicopters to Iran, documents filed in the civil case show.

Bell is holding the helicopter in Arlington while agents and the U.S. attorney's office decide how to proceed.

Paul DiVecchio, a Massachusetts export control consultant who is working with Panalpina, said that Commerce Department investigations often take a long time to complete.

But he said it is unusual for 14 months to elapse without the government at least completing the seizure of the aircraft.

"Why is nothing happening in this case?" he said.

Prosecutors in Dallas declined to talk about what they said was an ongoing case.