Iran International
The lawyer for the son of a key figure in Iran’s ruling elite says they have filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg over a report alleging his involvement in Iranian oil trade linked to Russia and global energy markets.
However, the lawyer, as quoted by Iranian media, did not specify where or when the lawsuit was filed. Iran International has not independently verified whether the lawsuit has actually been filed.
Hossein Shamkhani, the son of former security chief Ali Shamkhani, is at the center of the controversy. In December 2024, Ali Shamkhani, who served as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) from 2013 to 2023, declared himself a key decision-maker on Iran's global strategy and nuclear diplomacy.
ILNA published the interview on Saturday, in which the lawyer rejected Bloomberg’s reporting on Milavous Group Ltd., a company that Bloomberg reported had a financial turnover of $15 billion in 2022 and was part of Shamkhani’s business network.
The lawyer, who was not named, dismissed Bloomberg’s reporting as "completely fabricated", saying: "Mr. Shamkhani is neither the owner nor a shareholder of Milavous Group, and the numbers Bloomberg published are pure fiction. If they had any proof, they would have published it by now."
"We have taken legal action against Bloomberg for publishing false and baseless accusations against Mr. Shamkhani. They have provided no evidence to support their reporting, despite repeated requests," the lawyer told ILNA.
Bloomberg’s investigation described Milavous Group as a major player in the global oil market, allegedly engaged in blending and rebranding crude oil from Iran and Russia to obscure its origins. According to the report, sources familiar with the matter said that Shamkhani oversaw a sprawling web of interconnected businesses facilitating illicit Iranian oil sales. The report also noted that Milavous and other companies in Shamkhani’s network supply oil to major buyers, including China’s Sinopec, Chevron in the US, and BP in the UK.
However, Shamkhani’s unnamed lawyer said the financial claims about Milavous were inaccurate.
"We obtained financial records for Milavous Group, audited by an American firm, and they show that the company's turnover was just $9.2 million in 2022 and around $9.9 million in 2023. These figures are nowhere near what Bloomberg published," the lawyer said.
The Bloomberg report also noted that while Hossein Shamkhani has not been sanctioned, some of the vessels believed to be under his control had been blacklisted by the US Treasury. The investigation cited multiple unnamed sources alleging that Shamkhani’s network had deep ties to both Iranian and Russian oil markets, benefiting from the lack of direct sanctions against him.
Additionally, in December, Bloomberg reported that Hossein Shamkhani plays a key role in the supply of Iranian arms to Russia, citing more than a dozen unnamed US, UK, and European officials, as well as individuals with direct knowledge of his activities.
Despite these allegations, both Shamkhani and Milavous have denied any wrongdoing. A separate lawyer representing Shamkhani previously told Bloomberg that the allegations were "baseless and lacking supporting evidence." Similarly, Milavous Group's managing director, Mohamed Al Hashmi, dismissed any connection to Shamkhani or involvement in Iranian or Russian oil trading.
Shamkhani’s legal team now insists that the lawsuit will hold Bloomberg accountable for what they describe as "irresponsible and false reporting."
“The Palestinians become pawns,” said Schwartz, “particularly by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
According to Schwartz, the plight of the Palestinians serves the interests of the clerical rulers of Iran as a geopolitical tool in its broader quest for regional dominance.
"It's a regional problem," said Schwartz.
Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, the leader of the revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, coined the term "little Satan" to refer to Israel and "big Satan" to reference the United States.
Iran’s clerical rulers have pledged to destroy Israel for more than four decades. The country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei often appears in public wearing a black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh to symbolize Palestinians.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas militants, Iran’s fingerprints are seemingly everywhere as the Middle East has descended into turmoil.
Hezbollah in Lebanon, the armed Houthi movement in Yemen and Iraqi militias - all equipped and trained by Tehran - have taken shots at Israel with missiles and drones.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a Hamas source, reported on Oct 8, 2023, that Iran helped plot the attack, with the greenlight being given in Beirut during a meeting.
US intelligence, however, suggests that the attack came as a surprise to Iran.
While it’s not clear if Tehran coordinated the exact timing of the attack, what is certain is Iran has funded, trained and armed Hamas for decades. Iran has provided $100 million annually to Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, according to the US State Department in 2020.
"That money didn't go to improving the lives of the people of Gaza - the opposite, and went to building their vast tunnel network to building up their rockets and their weapons," said Schwartz.
The Hamas-Iran relationship: a paradox
The Shia-led theocracy in Iran and Sunni-led Hamas in Gaza adhere to diverging creed but have a common enemy in Israel.
Their ardor is fueled by extremism driving both sides of the conflict, Schwartz said.
"There is extremism on both sides. There are extremists on the Jewish side as well. There are Jewish extremists in the West Bank who are attacking Palestinians in the West Bank, and there's no excuse for that," said Schwartz.
"People often forget that the name of Hamas means the Islamic Resistance Movement," she added "this weaponization of Islam is only hurting the Palestinian people and making the prospects for peace ever more distant."
As the conflict drags on, Schwartz observes a shift within Israeli society, particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.
"Many of the Jews who were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 were left wing Israelis. Many of them were peace activists. And as we've seen over the course of the last 16 months, many in Israel have shifted rightward," Schwartz said.
That shift has a historical parallel in the 1929 Hebron Massacre, about which Schwartz has written a book.
She contends the obscure atrocity set in motion a cycle of violence that continues to shape the region today.
In 1929, Arabs set upon the Jewish community of the holy city of Hebron now in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and killed nearly 70 people.
Many those killed or injured were pious Jews opposed to a political Zionist movement, viewing it as a secular movement.
The attack, however, hardened many survivors into advocates of a Jewish state.
While the origins of that cycle of violence are not rooted in Iran, the violence between two peoples with suing conflict has only been exacerbated by Tehran, Schwartz said, creating more obstacles to lasting peace.
Peace in the holy land, which Schwartz believes is destined for both peoples to share, can't happen without both sides having self-determination. But peaceful coexistence is not feasible, argues Shwartz with the long arm of the Iranian establishment reaching the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
"I do think that the only way we will see peace and an end to this never-ending war is when both people have self-determination."
You can watch the full episode of Eye for Iran with award winning author Yarden Schwartz on YouTube, or listen on Spotify, Apple, Castbox, Amazon or any major podcast platform.
Shoeib Rezapour, 28, was hanged on Behesht Esfarayen bridge after being convicted of murder, according to the Oslo-based rights group Iran Human Rights (IHR).
Rezapour had been convicted of fatally stabbing a man three and a half years ago, IHR said citing an informed source. His sentence was qisas, or retribution-in-kind under Iran’s Islamic legal system.
Iran remains one of the few countries to conduct public executions, a practice widely condemned by human rights groups.
Public hangings were halted in 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions but resumed in 2022. That year, two people were hanged in public, increasing to seven in 2023 and four in 2024, IHR says.
IHR on Thursday also reported that eight prisoners were executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj the previous morning. Six of them were convicted of murder, one was sentenced to death on drug charges and another was hanged for moharebeh or enmity against God in connection with an armed robbery charge.
Earlier this week IHR also warned of the imminent execution of two political prisoners Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani at the same prison after Iran's Supreme Court rejected their request for a retrial.
Last year, at least 975 people were executed in Iran, marking a 17% increase from the 834 executions recorded the previous year.