Tehran-based company Safiran Airport Services was founded in 1993 and is operating in over 50 airports inside and outside Iran. The services provided by the company include personal security services, travel insurance, hotel and transportation arrangement for cabin crews, landing and overlay permit arrangement, custom clearance, immigration assistance and more. In September of 2022, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Safiran Airport Services for their part in coordinating Russian military flights between Iran and Russia, including ones associated with the transportation of Iranian UAVs to Russia, which were later used against Ukrainian civilians. The US sanctions were followed by other Western countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ukraine itself.
The story of Safiran Airport Services goes as back as 1988, when a company named Safiran Airlines was founded in Iran. The company was an air carrier specializing in international cargo flights on a charter basis. The company was owned by two Iranian businessmen and their families: Mohammed-Ali Habibian and Mohammed Bagher Nahvi, but in 2013 it suddenly ceased its activity. Despite the closure of Safiran Airlines, Habibian and Nahvi stayed in the air business with two other companies: Safiran Airport Services and Safiran Freight and Cargo. Habibian and Nahvi are, until this day, the chairman and vice chairman of the board of the entire Safiran Group, and are still very much involved in their business. Habibian and Nahvi both have close ties to the West – Habibian holds two academic degrees from top tier American universities, while Nahvi has business ventures registered in British Columbia, Canada, where his daughter also lives. While Nahvi was not designated as an individual, Canadian federal government described Safiran's role in the Iranian regime's "gross and systematic human rights violation and actions that threaten international peace and security" as significant. Safiran Freight and Cargo, although not designated, is in fact a sister company of Safiran Airport Services, and the airplanes’ photos portrayed on their website include both old Safiran Airlines blue-and-yellow logo, as well as Safiran Airport Services blue-orange and red logo. Safiran Freight and Cargo is offering air freight shipping services for commercial companies and importers, but also services like Safiran Airport Services, such as custom clearance. The materials exposed online, which were recently uploaded to WikiIran, show that Safiran is knowingly bypassing international sanctions. Their private correspondence prove that they know the extent of their wrongdoing: They are systematically asking their counterparts not to mention their name or their Iranian origin anywhere in the payment details. There's no doubt that Safiran's international activity was badly harmed by the sanctions, but there is still much to be done, such as extending the sanctions to other companies and individuals related to the company in order to put pressure on the company to stop taking part in the widespread war crimes of the regime, in Ukraine and elsewhere.