July 9, 2010 - A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has charged Mac Aviation Group, an Irish trading company, and its officers Thomas and Sean McGuinn of Sligo, Ireland, in a superseding indictment with purchasing F-5 fighter aircraft parts, helicopter engines and other aircraft components from U.S. firms and illegally exporting them to Iran.

The 27-count superseding indictment was announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and James Burch, Deputy Inspector General for Investigations of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

The superseding indictment alleges that from 2005 and continuing until 2006, the defendants caused canopy panels designed for the F-5 fighter aircraft, valued at approximately $44,500, to be exported from the United States to Iran. The defendants falsely stated that the end user for the F-5 panels was the Republic of Nigeria. Instead, the panels were sold by the defendants to Sasadja Moavanate Bazargani, in Tehran, Iran for $86,400. The purchase was arranged through the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company, known by its Iranian acronym as HESA.

On Sept. 17, 2008, the Treasury Department designated several Iranian entities as weapons of mass destruction proliferators and members of their support networks, pursuant to Executive Order 13382. Among the entities designated was HESA, which the Treasury Department determined was controlled by Iran?s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics and has provided support to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The defendants were previously charged with purchasing 17 helicopter engines from Rolls Royce Corporation in Indiana for $4.27 million dollars on behalf of an Iranian trading company, some of which were ultimately sent to HESA, and also causing U.S.-origin airplane vanes and bolts to be exported from the United States to Iran.

This investigation was conducted by special agents from the Department of Homeland Security?s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. Special agents from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement, also assisted in the investigation.