A poster of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is pasted on the wall of a residential building damaged after a nearby police station was struck two days earlier in a US-Israeli attack in Tehran, on, Sunday, March 15, 2026. [Vahid Salemi/AP]
Authorities in Greece have identified a string of activities that are believed to be linked to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, Kathimerini has learned. These stretch from the Athens branch of a bank based in Tehran and suspicious shipments seized at the port of Piraeus, to real estate transactions in Attica and Crete.
The bank, Saderat, is described online as a major Iranian lender with headquarters in Tehran and a global network of 3,000 branches. One of these branches is in Greece, and specifically at 25 Panepistimiou Street in downtown Athens, facing the Athens Academy. In an interesting coincidence, the branch is actually located in a property being rented from the Bank of Greece.
In September 2025, the United Nations and the European Union announced a raft of new sanctions against Iran. Made public on September 29, the sanctions targeted a string of individuals and legal entities. Saderat was among them, targeted, according to the European Commission announcement, because it “provides financial support in the form of loans to entities close to” the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and “also allows the funneling of funding to the Iranian Government’s proxies in the region, which are responsible for destabilizing activities.”
In Greece, the decision was forwarded to the Anti-Money Laundering Authority and the bank’s assets were frozen just a few days later on the orders of the authority’s chief, Haralambos Vourliotis. The freeze remains in effect to this day.
The shipping containers
Shipping containers packed with bars of titanium, lathes for their processing and all sorts of chemical substances, including polyester resin, remain sequestered by the customs authorities at Piraeus Port’s Neo Ikonion container terminal. They were seized because they contained materials that can be used for military as well as commercial purposes, which, according to foreign intelligence services, were destined for the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to be used in the construction of nuclear and ballistic weapons and explosives.
The first notable incident took place in 2023, when Piraeus customs officers intercepted a container that had set off from China and was declared as headed to Turkey. It contained titanium bars and a lathe, and the real destination was not Turkey, as the manifest claimed, but Iran.
A second suspicious shipment was intercepted a year later, on March 21, 2024, and involved 20 tanks carrying 23 tons of unsaturated polyester resin. The container had originated in China and its final destination was Lebanon. An investigation by a foreign intelligence agency revealed that the cargo was intended for a Lebanese national characterized as a “Hezbollah operative.” This specific individual was reportedly killed just a few days ago during an Israeli strike on the facilities of the Al-Manar television network, which is considered affiliated with the Shiite organization. The shipment is still held by the Piraeus customs authorities.
In early 2025, yet another container carrying a special lathe was seized at Piraeus. It had originated in Bulgaria, with Pakistan as the stated destination, though in this case, too, there were reasonable suspicions that it was actually headed to Iran.
On February 10, meanwhile, the US Treasury Department announced a new raft of sanctions against Iranian individuals and companies, including on a ship carrying fertilizer from Iran to Turkey. According to the Americans, the Brilliance and the company that owns it are known for bankrolling the Revolutionary Guard. The shipping company is headquartered in Panama, but its Syrian owner appears to have an office in Piraeus.
Real estate
Greek police and economic crimes investigators have received information recently pointing to real estate as a vehicle for laundering Iranian funds. The first such case is centered on a real estate agency in Crete and the second concerns several construction projects in southern Attica, using money traced back to the regime in Iran. These activities are currently under close investigation, as they are believed to be covers for money laundering.