Bloomberg published the story today, reporting that the Kochs not only sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, but bribed people in six countries, stole oil from federal land and rigged prices. The company's negligence also led to a pipeline explosion that killed two teenagers.
We already knew about the oil theft and the pipeline explosion. But selling oil equipment to Iran? Bribery?
... Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism...
Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban. Koch Industries units have also rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.
From 1999 through 2003, Koch Industries was assessed more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments. In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn’t pay for from federal land by mismeasuring the amount of crude it was extracting. Koch paid a $25 million settlement to the U.S.
Phil Dubose, a Koch employee who testified against the company said he and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat -- using techniques they called the Koch Method...Here are the details about the sales to Iran:
...the U.S. government was investigating Koch’s European unit on another front: sales to Iran.
On Aug. 14, 2008, investigators from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security met with George Bentu, who had worked as a sales engineer from 2001 to 2007 for Koch-Glitsch in Germany, Bentu says. In a four-hour interview at the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt, the officials asked about documents showing details of the company’s trades with Iran, he says...
Internal company records show that Koch Industries used its foreign subsidiary to sidestep a U.S. trade ban barring American companies from selling materials to Iran. Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy continued selling to Iran until as recently as 2007, the records show...
The company’s products helped build a methanol plant for Zagros Petrochemical Co., a unit of Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Petrochemical Co., the documents show. The facility, in the coastal city of Bandar Assaluyeh, is now the largest methanol plant in the world, according to IHS Inc., an Englewood, Colorado-based provider of chemicals, energy and economic data...
“Every single chance they had to do business with Iran, or anyone else, they did,” Bentu, 46, says...
Concerned that the transaction might run afoul of U.S. law, Bentu asked his manager about it, he says. Bentu says his boss told him not to worry, that the company’s U.S. lawyers made sure the deals with Iran were legal.We'd like to know: Shouldn't any politician who claims to be a patriotic American give back money he or she received from the Kochs? Shouldn't any group that claims to be patriotic -- such as Americans for Prosperity -- give back money it received from the brothers? Shouldn't any politician who was wined and dined at the Kochs' secret conclaves -- such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Ohio Gov. John Kasich -- immediately renounce his or her affiliation with them?
U.S. companies have been banned from trading with Iran since 1995, when President Bill Clinton declared it a threat to national security.
Iran supports Iraqi militants and Taliban fighters as well as terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, according to the U.S. State Department...
Just sayin'.
