Beyond US blockade: How Iran's secret 5,000+ agencies network keeps missiles flowing

Iran has continued importing materials that can be used to build missiles and drones despite Western sanctions and a US naval blockade, with a Reuters investigation uncovering a network of thousands of agencies and overseas intermediaries involved in military procurement.The investigation found that one agency, identified as MOD 346428, imported military-related goods worth $2.3 billion between January 2025 and June 2026. The shipments included explosives, rocket-fuel ingredients, aircraft engine parts and heavy-duty trucks that can be modified to carry missile launchers.The findings offer insight into how Iran has continued acquiring supplies for its weapons programmes during the war, even as US and Israeli strikes have targeted its missile and drone capabilities.A hidden network of thousands of agenciesReuters identified more than 5,000 agencies with names beginning with MOD, followed by a five or six-digit number. The entities shared a registered address with Iran's Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, known as MODAFL.The investigation, conducted with Israeli-American risk consultancy 240 Analytics, examined Iranian banking and government records, corporate filings and shipping data. It found that the agencies used foreign intermediaries and shell companies to purchase goods for Iran's military.The network's financial links also extended to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and businesses connected to Iran's political elite. Some of the agencies were linked to military personnel through records from Bank Sepah, an Iranian state-owned lender that handles salaries and pensions for the IRGC."What you have here is the regime's military lifeline during this conflict and for many years before," said Miad Maleki, a former senior US Treasury official who helped design American sanctions against Iran.How Iran moved money and military suppliesRather than relying on direct payments from Iran to foreign suppliers, the network used intermediaries who could pay for goods from overseas bank accounts. According to Reuters, 97% of the shipments it reviewed were settled "without currency transfer", making the transactions harder to trace through conventional cross-border payments.The goods reportedly entered Iran by several routes, including cargo ships across the Caspian Sea from Russia, trucks from Central Asia and freight aircraft from China. Import records also listed military-related goods originating in Germany and elsewhere in the European Union.The materials included chemicals used in rocket propellants, detonators, titanium and precision machinery. Such equipment can have civilian uses, but weapons experts who reviewed the findings said many of the items could support missile and drone production."This looks like an industrial-scale effort to rebuild or expand Iran's existing fleet" of drones and missiles, said Peter Salisbury, an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University who researches Iranian arms transfers and supply chains.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.