Two Men In The United States Sentenced To Prison After Trying To Sell Iranian Oil To China

Illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Joe Gratz)

JAKARTA - Two men in Texas, United States who were found guilty by a jury in November for trying to sell Iranian oil, violating sanctions imposed by Washington, and conspiring to launder money, were sentenced to 45 months in prison on Tuesday, the Justice Department said.

Zhenyu Wang (43), a Chinese national and Daniel Ray Lane (42) from McKinney, Texas, conspired with fellow conspirators to avoid US economic sanctions against Iran from July 2019 to February 2020.

They facilitated the purchase of sanctioned oil from Iran, covering up its origins, before then selling it to refineries in China, the department said in a statement.

Lane is the president of Stack Royalties personally owned, a Texas-based company selling oil and gas mineral rights to investment funds and private equity groups.

Lane's attorney, Paul Hetznecker, told Reuters late last year the case was based on an undercover government agent offering Lane "million dollars in profit" if he participated in the scheme, after initially rejecting their approach.

Paul Hetznecker called the case an "outrageous example of government acts that go beyond the bounds."

The two were charged, along with three other people, in 2020 at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. At least the two people involved in the conspiracy have pleaded guilty, according to court records.

China is the only major importer of Iranian oil in the world, despite sanctions unilaterally reinstated by former US President Donald Trump against Tehran's oil exports in 2018, after withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal between Tehran and six world superpowers.