Reuters Uncovers Secret Military Import Network Tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Including a Commander Accused of Killing Protesters

Economic Warfare & Trade Policy › Sanctions

Source: Reuters, Oct. 29, 2026. The $3B total is a TBR sum of Reuters figures.

A network of more than 5,000 secretly numbered agencies linked to Iran’s Defense Ministry has imported at least $2 billion in explosives, rocket-fuel ingredients and heavy trucks since January 2025, getting past Western sanctions and the U.S. naval blockade, according to a Reuters investigation published Thursday, October 29. Reuters reported that some of the bank accounts behind this Iran military import network trace back to Revolutionary Guards personnel, including a commander Washington accuses of firing on protesters.

According to Reuters, the agencies operate under names that begin with “MOD,” for Ministry of Defense, followed by a number, and all share the Tehran address of Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. Their records list a founding date of February 11, 1979, the day Ayatollah Khomeini took power, but Reuters found that most were actually set up in 2013, as sanctions pushed down Iran’s oil exports and currency.

Reuters said it identified the network with the Israeli-American risk consultancy 240 Analytics, drawing on Bank Sepah records, corporate filings and about 19,000 import records. Bank Sepah is the state lender that handles salary and pension payments for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Phone numbers registered to 91 of the agencies also appear in the bank’s records of IRGC personnel with accounts there, and Reuters reported that those account holders include at least two commanders the United States has accused of abuses against civilian protesters.

“What you have here is the regime’s military lifeline during this conflict and for many years before,” Miad Maleki, a former senior U.S. Treasury official who helped design Washington’s Iran sanctions program, told Reuters. “This is the complete ecosystem of the Iranian military’s trade business.”

Money that never crosses a border

According to the investigation, the agencies rely on frontmen and foreign shell companies, known as “trustees,” who use proceeds from illicit oil sales to buy goods abroad. For 97% of the shipments Reuters reviewed, the import data recorded the transactions as settled “without currency transfer,” meaning funds already held abroad paid for the goods. Reuters reported that 36 of the agencies held $1.2 billion in foreign-currency accounts at the end of 2024, while the rest of the network held about $1.8 billion in local currency.

Reuters found that a single agency, MOD 346428, imported $2.3 billion in goods between January 2025 and June 2026, including detonators, explosives, aircraft engine parts, rocket-propellant ingredients and 435 Iveco trucks. Reuters said the military uses heavy-duty trucks of this kind as camouflaged mobile launchers. The agency also imported thousands of Toyota Hilux and Land Cruiser trucks, which Reuters said the IRGC and its proxies modify to mount heavy machine guns, plus Toyota Tundras, a vehicle Reuters said the IRGC uses to haul drones.

By the numbers: imports during the war

Reuters reported that the war did not stop the flow. Monthly import volumes fell 47% from the previous month to $54 million in March, after the U.S.-Israeli war began on February 28, but rose to $77 million by May. By TBR calculation from those Reuters figures, May imports were $23 million, or about 43%, above the March low. A $1.9 million shipment of Russian detonators in June 2026 was the last of five similar Russian deliveries since early 2025, according to Reuters.

The deposit figures point the same way. By TBR calculation, the 36 agencies with foreign-currency accounts held 40% of the roughly $3 billion Reuters found on deposit at the end of 2024, with the rest of the network holding the other 60% in local currency.

“This looks like an industrial-scale effort to rebuild or expand Iran’s existing fleet” of drones and missiles, Peter Salisbury, an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University who researches Iranian arms supply chains, told Reuters.

From the protest crackdown to the payroll

Reuters reported a direct line to repression inside Iran through Brigadier General Hassan Shahvarpour, the IRGC’s longtime commander in Khuzestan province. Reuters said he is part of the provincial leadership of the Foundation for the Preservation of Relics and Publication of Sacred Defense Values, a body it linked to the MOD network.

According to a U.S. sanctions document cited by Reuters, units under Shahvarpour’s command killed at least 100 civilians in Mahshahr in 2019 during protests over gas prices, encircling people trying to flee in armored vehicles and firing machine guns into the crowd. The U.S. sanctioned him in 2020. In 2021, Reuters reported, Shahvarpour asked for 50 billion rials to finance a new IRGC building in the province, and the account named to receive the money was held by MOD 424000.

Two local activists told Reuters that Shahvarpour’s men crushed new demonstrations in Khuzestan at the start of this year. They said they documented the names of 46 dead in the province, most of them killed on January 8 and 9, when the IRGC opened fire on demonstrators. These figures come from the activists and could not be independently verified. (See our earlier coverage of the UN expert’s findings on Iran’s wartime crackdown.)

Reuters also connected the network to Bonyad Mostazafan, a multibillion-dollar foundation it describes as directly controlled by Iran’s supreme leader, which the U.S. sanctioned in 2020. Between January and April 2025, MOD 346428 imported 886 tonnes of chemicals listed as Chinese-origin into Bandar Abbas, under a customs code that includes sodium chlorates and other perchlorates, key precursors for solid rocket fuel. Three days after the final shipment, an explosion at the port killed at least 70 people and injured more than 1,200. Two people with knowledge of the April 26 blast told Reuters it was caused when sodium perchlorate ignited in dockside containers. Iranian state media reported that the chemicals were stored by Sina Port and Marine Services Development Co., which Bonyad Mostazafan owns !Unverified claim, Iranian state media (Iranian state media). Reuters said it could not determine whether the final 75-tonne shipment was responsible. The foundation’s head, former defense minister Hossein Dehghan, did not respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.

Responses from China, companies and Washington

Reuters said Iranian government bodies it contacted, including the presidency and Iran’s UN delegation in Geneva, did not respond. China’s Foreign Ministry said it was “unaware of the situation you describe” and opposed attempts to “smear China’s reputation.” Iveco said any presence of its vehicles in Iran “occurred beyond Iveco Group’s control and responsibility.” A Toyota spokesman said the company does not conduct any business in Iran. A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman said Washington is “always 10 steps ahead” of evasion attempts. Reuters said it found no evidence that any of the numbered agencies has been designated by Western governments.

Reuters added caveats. Experts it consulted noted that much of the material, even explosives, is dual-use and could have civilian purposes, and in many cases Reuters relied on customs codes and declared origins. The Bank Sepah records came from a hack claimed by a group called Codebreakers and circulated on Telegram and on WikiIran. WikiIran told Reuters the materials are authentic and that their origin was verified “through our sources and contacts both inside and outside Iran.” The Boston Report has not independently verified the leaked records.

The economy behind the network

The findings come as Iranians face severe economic strain. “The minimum wage increased 60% this year while inflation approached 90%,” Iran International economist Mohamad Machine-Chian told Iran International, which also reported that the dollar costs two and a half times as much as a year ago. The outlet reported that sanctions policy analyst Max Meizlish said pension payments and civilian services could come under pressure as revenues decline, while military and security personnel could continue receiving salaries. For more on prices and the rial, see our report on Iran’s rising prices and our Iran news hub.

Sources

• Reuters special report by Gavin Finch, Maggie Michael, Allison Martell and Marine Delrue, “Iran’s hidden web of military agencies is slipping hardware past the US blockade,” October 29, 2026, as republished with Reuters bylines by Kayhan Life: kayhanlife.com (agency structure, Bank Sepah deposits, import figures, Shahvarpour, Bandar Abbas, company and government responses)
• Iran International, “Iran’s Great Depression? Economists weigh Bessent’s dire forecast,” October 28, 2026: iranintl.com (Machine-Chian and Meizlish comments)

Additional sources

• Al Arabiya English, republication of the Reuters special report, October 29, 2026: english.alarabiya.net (confirms the report’s headline, date and findings; the reuters.com original could not be accessed for verification)
• Iran International, “Iran imports at least $2 billion in military supplies despite US blockade – Reuters,” October 29, 2026: iranintl.com (independent summary of the Reuters findings)