PR Firms Help Launderers of Iranian Money and Hurt Families of Dead Marines

Standard Chartered Bank Building in Penang. Photo: wiki commons.

It made news this week that a British bank (Standard Chartered) laundered approximately $250 billion dollars of Iranian money, leading American government officials to admit that the U.S. financial system was “vulnerable to terrorists.” New York regulators blasted the 150-year old bank calling it a “rogue institution” that “helped sustain a global threat to peace and stability.”

Today, a lawsuit was filed at The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York that charges the bank with supporting efforts by the Iranian Government to avoid payment of a $2.65 billion judgment awarded to a group of victims of Iran sponsored terrorism.

The case dates back to 2001, when families of the 241 American Servicemen who were killed in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, as well as several injured survivors filed civil suits against the Islamic Republic of Iran in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The families and survivors sought a judgment holding Iran responsible for the attack and in 2002 default judgments were entered.  In 2007, $2,656,944,877 was awarded to the victims, and the ruling determined that Tehran had to be “punished to the fullest extent legally possible.” By helping Iran hide as much as $250 billion in Iranian transfers, Standard Chartered also assisted the terror state in avoiding payment to the victims of the bombing which killed a total of 299 American and French servicemen.

Today’s lawsuit charges that the survivors and families were significantly harmed by Standard Chartered’s “wrongful conduct…because assets of Iran and its agents…were processed through New York without the required notice to OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control), preventing OFAC from disclosing their existence.” If OFAC knew, the families would have been paid.

In response, the bank hired Maitland, a crisis PR agency after seemingly interviewing more than 10 other PR agencies according to trade media. Undoubtedly, it’s an assignment which will pay very well – as terror sponsors have deep pockets. Ten PR companies were willing be affiliated with the murderers of U.S. marines, and those who seek to destroy the Western world. It’s not dissimilar to the reports that in 2011, Assad’s Syrian regime worked with another PR firm as a behind the scenes expose explained.

Who knows what we will discover in the future – perhaps a Madison Avenue communications company is communicating with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad as this piece is written.  Shamefully, it’s already been made crystal clear that nations who threaten the U.S. can count on top notch PR firms to help spin their immoral messages to the West.

Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, and author of “For Immediate Release.”