Farhad Azima, Wins Ellis Island Medal of Honor
Farhad Azima, chairman of Aviation Leasing Group, was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor on May 9, 1998. Born in Iran, Azima is of Azerbaijani descent and currently lives in the United States.
Each year, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO) gives Ellis Island awards to ethnic Americans from all backgrounds who have made valuable professional and patriotic contributions.
Since 1981, Mr. Azima has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aviation Leasing Group of Companies (ALG). ALG is directly involved in airline operations and technical support of the aviation industry. The Group currently owns, operates, and/or manages over 50 aircraft, many of which are operated by ALG’s associated company Buffalo Airways.
Farhad Azima is Chairman of Buffalo Airways which, in addition to its airline operations, conducts a sophisticated training program which includes training for the FAA, a number of other airlines, and training for the U.S. Navy E6 program, a program which is also under consideration by the U.S. Air Force.
The Company specializes in creating turnkey airlines and provides services to clients in South America, Africa, St. Lucia, a number of USSR Republics, the U.S. and Canada. Services include aircraft leasing, procurement, financing, management, training, operations and technical support, and automation. More here.
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Related reading: The Clinton Global Initiative 2007 List of Members
Meet The Iranian-Born, Major Clinton Donor Caught Up In The Panama Papers Scandal
DailyCaller: The Panama Papers investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shows a prominent Clinton donor worked with the law firm Mossack Fonseca.
Farhad Azima, who ended up in the spotlight during the Iran-Contra affair during former President Ronald Reagan’s years in office, reinvented himself after the scandal as a politically pragmatic bipartisan donor. Azima went to the White House during Bill Clinton’s presidency 10 times, “between October 1995 and December 1996, including private afternoon coffees with the president,” according to ICIJ.
Then, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was mounting her Senate campaign, Azima “in December 1999, hosted her and 40 guests for a private dinner that raised $2,500 a head.”
Azima’s generosity towards the former president and former secretary of state continued beyond the White House years, and The New York Times reported that Azima “pledged $1 million to the [William J. Clinton Presidential] library.”
The Iranian-born Azima made his living as an aviation executive. It is his work that gave him access to a Boeing 707 cargo jet, which he allegedly lent to the CIA to send weapons to Nicaraguan Contras — though Azima denies this.
The Clinton donor told ICIJ, “I’ve had nothing to do with Iran-Contra.”
“[I was] investigated by every known agency in the U.S. and they decided there was absolutely nothing there,” Azima told ICIJ. In a final remark, he said the whole investigation into his Iran-Contra involvement, “was a wild goose chase. The law enforcement and regulators fell for it.”
The Iran-Contra affair did not stop Azima from making quite the fortune, which in part has gone to the Clinton Foundation. According to a list of donors released by former President Clinton himself in December 2008, Azima gave a donation “from $50,001 and $100,000.”
Apparently the controversial donor’s money is so irresistible that even in 1997, while still dealing with the damage to his reputation from Iran-Contra, Azima gave $143,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which the DNC at first turned down but then ultimately accepted, according to The New York Times.
Related reading: The World Affairs Council of America, Oman and Iran and Beyond
FEC records show that Azima gave Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign $2,300 in November 2007. Once President Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee, Azima gave Obama’s Victory Fund a total of $30,800 in October 2008.
Azima also has ties to known Iran sanction evader Iranian national Houshang Hosseinpour, ICIJ reports. Back in 2011, the Clinton donor was involved in a joint venture with Hosseinpour to buy a hotel in Georgia, according to ICIJ.
At the time of Azima and Hosseinpour’s collaboration, former Secretary Clinton was still at the Department of State attempting to enforce sanctions against Iran. The actions of Hosseinpour were publicly admonished by the Department of Treasury in 2014 when they referred to him by name as trying to get around sanctions.
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Yes of course there is more.
Following the release of the Panama Papers, we learned that a company named FlyGeorgia was being used as a conduit to circumvent economic sanctions against Iran. An Iranian national named Hosshang (or Houshang) Hosseinpour has been targeted by the U.S. Treasury Department as part of a broader effort to enforce the sanctions. Hosseinpour and two others set up a number of front companies, some based in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, to facilitate their plan. To quote from the Irish Times article cited above:
The files show that [Farhad] Azima and Hosseinpour appeared on corporate documents of a company that planned to buy a hotel in the nation of Georgia in 2011. That was the same year treasury officials asserted that Hosseinpour, who co-founded the private airline FlyGeorgia, and two others first began to send millions of dollars into Iran, which led to sanctions being taken against him three years later.
Farhad Azima is one of the infamous middlemen involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, the Savings and Loan scandal, and other weapons trafficking incidents. Unnamed in any of the Panama Papers reporting on FlyGeorgia is George Cannady. But he is right there lurking in the shadows of Azima and Hosseinpour.
An entry in the Business Registry of Georgia shows that Cannady was a partner in Georgia Transport Management with Levan Tskhadadze. Tskhadadze had formerly been a manager at manager at Hosseinpour’s front company FlyGeorgia. Other people who list FlyGeorgia as an employer are Ursula Freseman, Lalit Dang, and Iranian former intelligence officer General Ali Asgari Reza. Freseman and Dang also list Heavylift International Airlines as a former employer. Heavylift is one of Farhad Azima’s many companies with which notorious weapons trafficker Viktor Bout was at one time affiliated. More here from Fareport
