Washington. The US has imposed sanctions on an Indian businessman, his wife and nine Indian companies for forming a cartel for oil business with Iran.
The couple is accused of helping India avoid international sanctions imposed on Iran's oil business. The US Finance Ministry says that this entire network was helping Iran to continue the banned oil business through maritime fraud. The US Finance Ministry has named Indian businessman Sunil Kumar Sharma and his wife Jaspreet Preeti Shahid as the alleged operators of this network. Both of them prepared fake maritime registration and flag certificates for the ships, so that the ships carrying Iranian oil could continue their operations despite international sanctions.
Alleged network was running from Chandigarh, fake website created in the name of other countries
According to the US Finance Ministry, Sunil Kumar Sharma and his wife were operating this network from Chandigarh. It is alleged that both of them prepared fake maritime registries by misusing the identities of maritime administrative officers of many countries. They created websites that claimed to provide services on behalf of different countries such as registering ships, providing them with maritime flags, training sailors and classifying ships. However, the respective countries did not give any permission for these services.