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The Bushehr nuclear reactor, which Iran claims is being used to produce energy for civilian use only. (AP)
Last update - 00:00 22/11/2007
Germany probes 50 firms that sold nuclear equipment to Iran
By Benjamin Weinthal
Tags: Iran, Germany, Vero, Israel

German customs police have uncovered in recent years 50 German companies that sold Iran equipment to finish building its nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

Coordinating this smuggling operation was a Berlin-based front company called Vero, headed by Dimitry Solotarev, an Armenian Jew with dual German and Russian citizenship. The value of the equipment transfered to Iran is estimated at $150 million. And that, Potsdam's public prosecutor told Haaretz, is evidently "just the tip of the iceberg."

Iran claims that the Bushehr power plant it is building with the help of Russian engineers is intended for civilian purposes. However, Western intelligence agencies suspect Iran is planning to manufacture nuclear weapons there. Iran's continued uranium enrichment to be used in the reactor was among the reasons the United Nations imposed economic sanctions.
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Iran is on Germany's list of countries to which it is illegal to export nuclear know-how. Solotarev's company disguised the sale to Iran by claiming it was supplying the equipment to a Russian nuclear reactor in Rostov.

Customs investigators discovered that between 10 and 12 German companies knew they were transfering equipment to Iran. In 2005, a German court sentenced three directors of a company that supplied a unique crane for the reactor's construction to three years' probation.

Solotarev was in Russia when customs officers raided Vero's offices in 2004, and has not returned to Germany since
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  1.   News? Armenian? 05:22  |  Shual 22/11/07
  2.   Jonathan S... see, we told them 05:41  |  Lynn 22/11/07
  3.   "Investigating"? Ha. Who does Germany think they are fooling? 07:31  |  Dr. L. Brnd 22/11/07
  4.   shame on Germany 08:04  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 22/11/07
  5.   nuke Berlin 08:22  |  harry truman 22/11/07
  6.   Shock 10:09  |  european 22/11/07
  7.   # 3 10:19  |  JJ 22/11/07
  8.   ABSURD, PARTISAN CLAIM 10:22  |  PARIS 22/11/07
  9.   STALIN`S TRUISM 10:55  |  SM 22/11/07
  10.   in 1973 Germany denied US planes permission to land 11:10  |  Yom Kippur 22/11/07
  11.   Germany accomplice of nuclear Iran for 20 years 11:13  |  Jonathan S 22/11/07
  12.   Iran continues and we talk 11:17  |  in the meantime 22/11/07
  13.   How Germany helped the mullahs 11:40  |  Jonathan S 22/11/07
  14.   3 years probation, that`ll really stop them! 11:45  |  don 22/11/07
  15.   No, JJ #3, NO other nation has this pattern of conduct...or motiv 11:54  |  Dr. L. Brnd 22/11/07
  16.   Money talks, people mumble 12:09  |  Motic 22/11/07
  17.   Motic 12:53  |  JP 22/11/07
  18.   Dr. L. Brnd 13:00  |  JP 22/11/07
  19.   cjk 4 16:07  |  realism 22/11/07
  20.   Question 17:34  |  european 22/11/07
  21.   German newspapers should educate their public about this payback. 23:07  |  NEVER AGAIN 22/11/07
  22.   "Smuggling operation" ... "illegal to export" ... "disguised" 00:22  |  Axel 23/11/07
  23.   realism 00:33  |  Axel 23/11/07
  24.   For European about German weapons 01:26  |  Jonathan S 23/11/07
  25.   Haaretz is a German owned newspaper 05:40  |  readers beware 23/11/07
  26.   Germans helped Iraq; now Iran. Treat Jews like Idiots 11:22  |  Elly 23/11/07
  27.   # 26 12:36  |  Axel 23/11/07
  28.   Germany and weapons of mass destruction 12:56  |  Jonathan S 23/11/07
  29.   The amusing cheating game of Germany 12:57  |  Jonathan S 23/11/07
  30.   Germany and Islamic terror 13:16  |  Jonathan S 23/11/07
  31.   Germany and the Islamic bomb 13:27  |  Jonathan S 23/11/07
  32.   To Elly 13:50  |  Axel 23/11/07
  33.   #26 # 24 germans double moral 13:56  |  european 23/11/07
  34.   To Elly, Vienna 14:10  |  Michael 23/11/07
  35.   # 33 european 15:02  |  Axel 23/11/07
  36.   # 21 15:06  |  Axel 23/11/07
  37.   Q: "The big question is this: why does Germany so much want 15:40  |  what goes around ... 23/11/07
  38.   the zionist movement can not exist without the Axels 16:05  |  Queen Zayyin 23/11/07
  39.   Germany wants no Iranian bomb 16:08  |  joki 23/11/07
  40.   #31 why does Germany so much want an Islamic bomb? 17:07  |  european 23/11/07
  41.   #35 other example 17:33  |  european 23/11/07
  42.   Germany wants no Iranian bomb ? 18:07  |  european 23/11/07
  43.   # 41 european 18:13  |  Axel 23/11/07
  44.   Joki joking about the subs 18:23  |  Jonathan S 23/11/07
  45.   For European 18:24  |  Jonathan S 23/11/07
  46.   #43 Axel you are not objective 20:16  |  european 23/11/07
  47.   a reconing is coming for the German merchants of death 19:34  |  what goes around ... 25/11/07
  48.   Stop bashing Germany 00:43  |  Badem 26/11/07
  49.   Jonathan S. and Germany 10:23  |  Michael 26/11/07
  50.   Mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv 01:12  |  Ayatollah Hydrogenei 29/03/09
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