U.S. charges Chinese national with providing weapons materials to Iran

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - The United States has charged a Chinese national with violating U.S. sanctions by providing to Iran materials used to produce ballistic missiles, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Tuesday.

Xiangjiang Qiao works at Sinotech Dalian Carbon and Graphite Manufacturing Corporation, a China-based company which the U.S. Treasury Department placed on a sanctions list in 2014 for helping Iran buy parts to produce ballistic missiles. Sanctions bar companies from using the U.S. financial system.

Qiao between 2019 and 2022 helped supply Iran with isostatic graphite, an ultra-fine grain used to make rocket nozzles, and set up a bank account in the name of a front company to receive $15,000 in transfers from a U.S. bank in connection with the transactions, prosecutors said.

Qiao, 39, is in China and has not been arrested, prosecutors said. He faces charges including sanctions evasion, bank fraud and money laundering.

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