During the first months of 2006, three European states took important steps to address continuing Iranian attempts to procure equipment for its nuclear and missile programs by evading Western export control laws. Germany pursued a series of highly-publicized investigations into illicit trafficking in these commodities; Belgium forced the resignation of a senior security official because of his failure to enforce national export controls effectively; and the UK issued new guidelines tightening controls on exports to suspect Iranian end-users.

Germany
On March 28, 2006, German authorities in Potsdam announced that they had uncovered a clandestine network involving at least six German firms, which provided equipment to Iran’s nuclear program through a Russian front company; the company operated in Berlin in 2003 and 2004. [1] Seven employees of the company, mostly of Russian origin, whose whereabouts are now unknown, are thought to have organized the network.

According to a spokesman for the office of the Potsdam state prosecutor, Benedikt Welfens, the equipment was intended for the Bushehr nuclear power reactor, currently being built in Iran with Russian assistance, and was dual-use in nature (having both military and civilian uses); the equipment transferred included items such as hydraulic pumps, electronic components, transformers, and special cables. [2] Welfens added that, “Five or six firms delivered goods to Iran. We suspect that one of the companies knew where the equipment was headed. The other firms thought the equipment they were supplying was destined for Russia, for which no export restrictions apply.” [3]

He also pointed out that the items sold were not essential for the production of nuclear weapons: “The material was not of crucial significance for the nuclear industry. It was peripheral rather than core. It did not include centrifuges,” referring to the machines used to enrich uranium that can be used for nuclear fuel or nuclear arms. [4] All dual-use German exports to Iran, however, require export licenses, which were not obtained. [Editor’s note: It is not clear why Iran would need to resort to a clandestine supply network to obtain dual-use items for the Bushehr facility, since Russia is thought to be supplying all the equipment needed for the unit. This suggests that the equipment involved may have been intended for another Iranian facility, such as the Arak heavy-water reactor, which Iran is building indigenously and which the United States, among others, believes Iran plans to use to produce plutonium for nuclear arms.]

Welfens also noted that the equipment, valued at roughly $3 million dollars, was transported overland to Russia via the German-Polish border town of Frankfurt/Oder and then shipped to Iran over the Caspian Sea. [5] Dubai may also have been used as a transshipment point. [6] Such routing suggests that the smuggling network was able to evade transit controls in these countries, as well as export licensing requirements in Germany.

The German investigation was launched in September 2004, but the fact that some of the goods reached Iran, Welfens said, was learned only recently. Apparently this triggered a decision to intensify efforts to close down the smuggling network. In the week preceding his announcement, Welfens stated that his team had raided 41 sites in Germany and confiscated records and cash, suggesting that additional firms may have been involved in the smuggling effort. [7]

The Potsdam state prosecutor’s investigation, highlighted here first because it is so extensively described, is one of a number of recent official probes of Iranian smuggling operations in Germany.

• On January 23, 2006, in Karlsruhe, near the French-German border, prosecutors filed charges against two men identified as Volker St., 46, and Peter Paul K., 65. According to the criminal charges, the two men are accused of selling a vibration test system for a reported 200,000 Euros (US$230,000) to an unidentified foreign military intelligence service. An unnamed source within the German government indicated that the intended destination for this equipment was Iran. German media also reported that the technology - used to simulate vibration shocks that missiles experience during launch, stage operations and normal flight - was intended to be used for the development of Iran’s Shahab medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM), which have the potential to carry nuclear warheads to Israel and various U.S. military bases in the region. [8]
  
• On February 23, 2006, German police raided twelve locations across four German states, arresting two individuals. According to a statement released by Germany’s federal prosecutor, "The accused are suspected of attempting, in the service of a foreign intelligence agency, to obtain parts for delivery systems and conventional weaponry for armed forces." [9] A source later informed Reuters that the foreign intelligence service was that of Iran. The specific equipment being sought included control components for projectiles, equipment for the production of European Ariane IV launch vehicle rockets, and military radio and night-vision equipment. [10]
  
• Most recently, on May 9, 2006, in a raid on ten businesses in several German cities, German customs police arrested two Germans and two Iranians on charges of assisting Iran to obtain navigation devices for use in unmanned aerial vehicles and to procure 30 Czech fighter planes. [11]
  

The developments in Germany and Belgium leave little doubt that Iran is undertaking a wide-ranging effort, not unlike those of Pakistan and Iraq in the 1980s, to utilize the technological capabilities of advanced Western European states to support its nuclear and missile programs. Actions by the German, Belgian, and UK governments indicate that efforts to curtail trafficking in WMD and missile relevant commodities are intensifying. It remains too early, however, to judge the long-term effectiveness of these measures.

Sammy Salama, Leonard S. Spector, and Gina Cabrera-Farraj - Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies