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posted by martyb on Thursday August 04 2016, @12:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the waddle-waddle-quack-quack dept.

The Obama administration quietly shipped $400 million stacked on wooden pallets in an unmarked plane to Iran in January — just as Tehran was releasing four Americans who had been detained there, according to a report.

The huge cash load represented the first payment of a $1.7 billion debt that Iran, at an international tribunal in The Hague, claimed it was owed over a failed 1979 arms deal signed before the fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal Tuesday night.

The Obama administration was accused Tuesday night of making the cash-for-hostages deal by timing the payout to the release — but US officials said the money was simply part of settling the nearly 40-year-old debt under the terms of the historic nuclear agreement hammered out in 2015.

"As we've made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim . . . were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home," State Department spokesman John Kirby told the Journal.

Source: New York Post

the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane.

Source: The Wall Street Journal


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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 04 2016, @06:39PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 04 2016, @06:39PM (#384160) Journal

    But this cut off is not total nor beyond the control of the US government. They could have let a few billion through if they wanted to.

    I suspect Iran didn't want a digital deposit, because they learned how easily such could disappear.

    Instead they accepted marked and number-recorded currency. Maybe a Win-Win situation. They gotta spend it somewhere.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:24PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:24PM (#384211) Journal

    They'll take it, as long as it's not in British pounds. :-)

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    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 04 2016, @09:36PM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 04 2016, @09:36PM (#384261) Journal

      Oh those cunning bastards. So this is what Brexit was all about!

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