Iran Redline

Are you struggling to find the smoothest, most perfectly spherical balls? Iran Redline feels your pain! And apparently so too does SPND ( سپند ) - the hapless Iranian defense research organization with a penchant for nuclear weapons - because SPND's latest business venture involves solving exactly this problem.  In today's post, we're revealing the SPND front company that is leading a rather ludicrous commercial effort to deliver the best giant balls in all of Iran. The company is run by two notorious SPND old-timers - mechanical engineer Saeed Borji ( دکتر سعید برجی , national ID 1816934984) and metallurgist Mohammad Reza Heydari (aka Mohammadreza Heidari, or مهندس محمدرضا حیدی , national ID 4489244029). It's not hard to tell which of these guys is the bigger fish in the SPoND, as Dr Saeed Borji has tastefully named the company after himself: say hello to the Azar Afrouz Saeed Engineering Company! In Farsi, they're known as شرکت فنی مهندسی آذر افروز ...

Iran Redline usually avoids anything to do with accounting, and is very happy that our shoestring budget pretty much takes care of itself. But when we realized that Iran's national budget contained a specific line item for SPND ( سپند ) - the notorious defense research organization that houses expertise and technology from Iran's former nuclear weapons program - we just had to take a closer look. Even if that involved a bit of accounting. It turns out that SPND is well-funded by the Iranian state - much more so that we had imagined - and that SPND's budget has skyrocketed over the past four years. In today's post, we can reveal just how much Tehran gives SPND to carry out its nefarious activities: almost USD $21 million per year. But back to the numbers in a minute. Here's how we know just how much SPND is getting paid. Budgets - boring but important Every year in about December, Iran's President submits a budget bill for the forthcoming ye...