News

August 13, 2010: For the first time, Canada has prosecuted one of its citizens, Mahmoud Yadegari, for trying to smuggle nuclear research equipment to Iran. While Iranian born, Yadegari is a Canadian citizen, and had bought ten pressure transducers (needed to enrich uranium for nuclear warheads) from an American firm, stating he was shipping them to Dubai (from where they would be smuggled into Iran). Yadegari was detected, arrested, convicted and sentenced to 51 months in jail. He also lost his house, and his wife fled back to Iran with their child.

Many Western nations, in addition to the United States, have become more aggressive in going after Iranian technology and hardware smuggling. Australia recently stopped a shipment of pumps that, it turned out, were capable of being used in nuclear power plants (as well as for more benign uses). Iran has been quite blatant about buying dual use equipment, and then openly using the stuff for military purposes. That bravado is backfiring.