US accuses Swiss firms of helping Iran dodge oil sanctions

A bulk cargo ship sits at anchor in the Strait of Hormuz Keystone

Swiss companies are allegedly helping to manage part of Iran's secret fleet of oil tankers and conducting transactions that finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Quds Force, according to the United States.

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Such activities are accused of providing economic support to the Tehran regime, enabling it to circumvent Washington’s sanctions.

In 2022, Fractal Shipping took over the management of a fleet of around 30 former oil tankers. The company transported Russian oil. When Western countries tightened sanctions against Russia, Fractal’s CEO, Mathieu Philippe, created a subsidiary in Dubai.

Since July 2025, Mathieu Philippe and his companies in Dubai and Geneva have been on the US sanctions list. According to Washington, his companies are part of an Iranian oil transportation network.

According to US intelligence, the head of this network is Iranian oil magnate Hossein Shamkhani, son of Ali Shamkhani, an advisor to Ali Khamenei. Both the Ayatollah and Ali Shamkhani were killed in joint Israeli and US bombings. Then, in April, the US imposed new sanctions on Hossein Shamkhani’s network of companies.

In addition to oil transportation companies, the man also owns profit reinvestment companies. One of these leads pointed to Zug. The Zug-based company Ocean Leonid Investments was founded by a business partner of Hossein Shamkhani, the Iranian Mahdiyar Zare Mojtahed. The latter is registered in the commercial register as a citizen of the Caribbean island of Dominica.

Fund management with oil money

Ocean Leonid Investments was a hedge fund that engaged in risky commodity trading. The company is currently in liquidation. In July, US tax authorities sanctioned the Swiss firm for allegedly investing funds from Hossein Shamkhani’s oil deals.

Since then, all members of the board of directors have resigned. Ocean Leonid Investments also had offices in London and Dubai, which were closed by order of the authorities at the end of 2024.

While some companies in the Shamkhani network have been shut down, others are emerging. The US Department of Justice has filed two civil lawsuits seeking the confiscation of more than $15.3 million allegedly used to finance an illicit Iranian oil distribution network. The funds belong to the Singapore-based Wellbred Group, which is believed to be involved in Hossein Shamkhani’s network.

The Wellbred Group has a subsidiary in Geneva: Wellbred Trading. According to US court documents, $7.6 million was transferred from a Wellbred Swiss account to Singapore via the United States in January, in violation of US sanctions against Iran. The CEO of Wellbred Trading did not respond to requests for comment from Swiss public broadcaster SRF.

Allegations of terrorist financing

Another lead concerning the links between Swiss companies and Iran points to Zurich. The investment bank MBaer has been officially closed since February. Mike Baer, ​​the great-grandson of Julius Baer, ​​founded the company in 2018.

According to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), MBaer committed “serious and systematic breaches of its due diligence obligations in the fight against money laundering, as well as deficiencies in its administrative organization and risk management.” An investigation is still underway, under the authority of the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland.

According to the US Treasury Department, MBaer Bank laundered money for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force, and thus “financed terrorism”.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a financial intelligence unit attached to the US Treasury, indicates that MBaer Bank transferred more than $60 million in this context. It also mentions “transactions linked to Venezuelan corruption and Russian illicit activities.”

The founder of MBaer, ​​Mike Baer, ​​refutes these accusations. A communications agency responded to the SRF programme Rundschau that “the allegations made in the FinCEN report refer to situations where, at the time of the transactions, there was no indication of any link with Iran, sanctioned organisations, or terrorist activities. FinCEN’s allegations are therefore unfounded and are categorically rejected.”

Adapted from French by AI/mga

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