KINSELLA: The Iranian money connection

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The Iranian connection.

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It’s well-known, or should be, that Iran is the epicenter of much of the chaos in the world these days. Wherever you look, the Iranian regime’s destructive presence is being felt.

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Iran-backed Houthis terrorists have targeted shipping in the Red Sea, shutting down 70% of a vital part of the world’s supply chain. Iran has also carried out missile strikes against Pakistan, Iraq and Syria.

It has allied itself with South Africa’s push to have Israel falsely accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. And, of course, Iran has provided arms and funding to Hezbollah and Hamas, both now raining missiles down on Israeli citizens.

And all of that is just in the past week.

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For a longer period, Iran has been busily attempting to disrupt democracy in the West. For example, America’s cyber-defence agency has reported Iran is now “a major threat to the security of U.S. and allied networks and data.”

Less known, however, is the extent of Iran’s criminal activity in Canada.

While the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has acknowledged that Canadians have received “credible” death threats originating in Iran – and the Trudeau Liberals have insisted they may designate the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity – Iran’s financial dealings with extremists are difficult to document. But they exist.

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In 2020, for example, Global News revealed Iran used a Toronto-based company to wire millions of dollars to Canada despite sanctions being in place.

For years, Canada has had in place laws – called the “Special Economic Measures (Iran) Regulations” – to halt any further development of nuclear weapons capability by Iran. But the law also prohibits “entering into or facilitating any transaction” with Iran, as well as “providing any financial or related services.” The only exception is for humanitarian purposes.

The case of Laith Marouf is notorious: he was the “anti-racism” consultant who received more than $120,000 from the federal government – while he was simultaneously calling Jews “loud-mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists,” online.

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Ottawa has said it wants the money back, but Marouf isn’t cooperating.

Marouf is now in Beirut, Lebanon, broadcasting more vile anti-Semitism via a channel called “Free Palestine Television.” This newspaper, meanwhile, has obtained the program’s confidential production notes, describing Marouf as their “political commentator, Beirut studio.”

This newspaper has also been provided with documents clearly showing Marouf being paid by the state-controlled Iranian “news network.” The problem? The payments are dated 2022 – when Marouf was still in Canada, and still being funded by the Trudeau government. Which appears to fly in the face of the Trudeau government’s rules.

Marouf acknowledged being contacted by this newspaper, but did not say what the Iranian payments were for.

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Lesser-known groups have had secret financial dealings with Iran, too.

A self-described anarchist group – the “Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island – recently made a plea on X (formerly Twitter) for “support (for) Palestinian anarchists defending their community from genocide and apartheid against the settler-colonial state of Israel.”

The “anarchist network,” whose appeal was titled “EMERGENCY FUNDS FOR FAUDA – PALESTINIAN ANARCHISTS” with what appeared to be blood dripping off of it, then shared a cryptocurrency address for donations. Thousands were transmitted, in equivalent U.S. dollars.

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Unsavoury, yes. But illegal? As it turns out, possibly both.

The address was for a cryptocurrency exchange called TRON – and the anarchists’ “wallet,” as it is called, was in the middle of three sanctioned Iranian crypto exchanges associated with the IRGC. The anarchists on Vancouver Island also publicize their channel on Telegram, the encrypted platform favoured by terrorists everywhere. One of the threads was titled, in Arabic: “How to make a Molotov cocktail.”

There are more than 2,000 pro-Palestinian or anarchist channels on Telegram.

Attempts to obtain a comment from the anarchist network also went unanswered.

Neil Schwartzman, the cyber-detective who examined the documents showing transactions to and from Iran, says: “It’s very, very dirty. And it raises the possibility that Iranian entities are funding some protests in Canada.”

He adds: “What we are seeing is financial interactions between local Canadian activists and groups who are potentially adjacent to, or are even actual terrorist groups. It is clear they are taking steps to prevent the origin of the funds from being seen.”

Money coming into Canada for extremism and anti-Semitism – and money going out in the direction of the major state sponsor of terrorism in the world, Iran.

Will the Canadian government take action?

Or will it look the other way, as it did for too long with Iran’s mouthpiece, Laith Marouf?

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