In the wake of media reports focused on the petrochemical corruption of Hossein Shamkhani that allegedly led to the resignation of his father, the Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Council Ali Shamkhani, it's time to shed light on another business partner of PGPICC, whose name was often mentioned alongside Shamkhani Jr.’s - Ali Bayandarian.

Bayandarian was born in Iran in 1974, completed a bachelor’s degree in business management in the Allameh Tabatabai University in Teheran. However, his social media portrays him as a "freelancer" in the petrochemical and oil-related products trading industry, with business ties stretching from the Middle East to East Asia and Europe.

In reality, Bayandarian is the managing director of Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd, a Hong Kong based broker, with additional branches in the UAE, China and Germany. The Iranian branch of Triliance Kish Petrochemical Company was renamed to Tiba Parsian Kish Petrochemicals, after it was sanctioned by the US Treasury in January of 2020, as part of a sanction package against Iranian petrochemical and petroleum sectors, a main revenue source of the Iranian regime that is used to fund terrorist groups and oppress the Iranian people.

The sanctions were imposed due to Triliance's involvement in transferring millions of dollars to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) as payment for Iranian Petrochemicals, crude oil and petroleum products shipped to the UAE and China, while concealing the origin of the shipments. Moreover, in 2022 and 2023, several suppliers and front companies affiliated with Triliance's global operations were also designated by the US government, adding to the pressure on the network of sanctions-busting entities.

The WikiIran team has uncovered the most prominent companies used by Triliance to pay PGPICC for its petrochemicals. Given their significance, It is likely that they constitute a substantial part of Bayandarian's complex method of by-passing sanctions:

Recent media reports in Iranian outlets mentioned Bayandarian as one of the four Petrochemical industry kingpins, alongside Hossein Shamkhani and money exchangers Mansour Zarrin Ghalam and Kambiz Nabi Zadeh. The reports suggest that this group of corrupt businessmen amassed immense profits, estimated in billions of dollars, due to their involvement in sanction-evading activities.

The WikIran documents that were used in the reports as evidence of their corrupt practices, reveal that approximately 70% of the foreign currency volume in petrochemical exports are exclusively managed by two people: Shamkhani and Bayandarian. The PGPICC transactions table reveals that in this time frame, Bayandarian's Triliance was responsible for 2.7 billion dollars in revenues for PGPICC between September 2020 and September 2022, which accounts for almost a quarter of the company's total income during that time.

It is obvious that the recent resignation of SNSC Secretary Ali Shamkhani had a significant negative impact on the business of his son, as he lost his source of power within the financial apparatus of the country. It is likely that the turbulence within the SNSC has also affected Bayandarian, due to his connection with Shamkhani Jr. It is also noteworthy that Bayandarian's designations have probably severely damaged his network of companies and revenue flow as well.

With the sequence of sanctions and the resignation of his inside man, Bayandarian might consider severing his ties with PGPICC for more profitable directions. The impact of such a step could be a crucial blow to PGPICC, a major income source of foreign currency for the Iranian financial ecosystem, which is largely disconnected from the global banking network; Only time will tell how this situation will unfold.