Myanmar military government concealed Iranian jet fuel imports

Investigations have revealed that Myanmar's military government bypassed U.S. sanctions by disguising Iranian aviation fuel as South African diesel. Documents, including government correspondence and shipping records, show that a $15.8 million shipment arriving in December 2025 via the tanker Reef was actually 113,000 barrels of aviation fuel loaded at Iran's Bandar Abbas port.

According to records obtained from a Myanmar government commerce ministry server, the country's Foreign Exchange Supervisory Committee authorized the shipment to be documented as diesel. The transactions involved Myanmar-based energy broker Dynamic Wave and Thailand's Tawan-Oil Trading. NEPAS, a business partially owned by Myanmar's military-controlled state, was also involved in the payment arrangements.

Evidence suggests a pattern of similar transactions between December 2024 and November 2025, involving over 843,000 barrels of aviation fuel valued at approximately $109.5 million. In some instances, paperwork identified the cargo as diesel from South Africa or Singapore, despite fuel density and pricing characteristics matching aviation fuel.

Reports also indicate that payments for these shipments were directed to accounts at Thailand's Siam Commercial Bank (SCB). While UN experts have previously identified Tawan-Oil Trading as a supplier to the Myanmar military, SCB has maintained that its transactions comply with anti-money laundering laws and are unrelated to weapons trading.