77-year-old U.S. citizen Kenneth Zong has been indicted on 47 federal counts tied to a sprawling international conspiracy to funnel $1 billion in Iranian-owned funds out of restricted South Korean accounts—breaking U.S. sanctions and flooding cash into the U.S., UAE, Europe, and beyond. The Anchorage native, once embedded in Alaska’s business scene, is now at the center of one of the largest alleged Iran sanctions evasion schemes in recent DOJ history.
Zong, now based in Seoul, South Korea, allegedly ran a shell game through his rebranded company KSI Ejder, Inc.—later renamed “Anchore”—to fake multimillion-dollar sales of marble tiles and construction supplies to an Iranian front company on Kish Island. No shipments ever left Dubai. No tiles reached Iran. But forged invoices, bills of lading, and contracts made it appear legitimate to Korean banking regulators, tricking them into releasing Iranian-held funds into Zong’s accounts.
Those funds—equivalent to $1 billion in U.S. dollars—were then dispersed through a web of phantom transactions across more than 10 countries, including transfers into Alaska, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates. Prosecutors say Zong worked with three Iranian nationals and one other U.S. citizen to orchestrate the fraud, converting the restricted Iranian money into easily movable currencies like dollars and euros.
In return, Zong collected between $10 million and $17 million in fees—money the indictment labels as blood money from sanctions evasion. At least $10 million of that haul was routed back to a co-conspirator in Anchorage, who used front companies to buy luxury real estate, high-end vehicles, and even a stake in a yacht. The transactions were designed to bury the origin of the cash and integrate it into the legitimate U.S. economy.
The charges against Zong include conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), unlawful provision of services to Iran, one count of money laundering conspiracy, and 43 individual counts of money laundering. The U.S. embargo on Iran, enforced through IEEPA and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), strictly bans most trade and financial services with the country—exceptions are narrow and tightly controlled.
An arraignment has not yet been scheduled. U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler praised the IRS-Criminal Investigation unit for their role in uncovering the scheme, calling it a ‘brazen circumvention of national security law.’ The case underscores how financial criminals exploit trade loopholes, fake documentation, and offshore entities to undermine U.S. foreign policy—one invoice at a time.
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Key Facts
- State: Alaska
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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