The Trump administration reportedly offered “several million dollars” to the captain of an Iranian oil tanker that’s been at the center of diplomatic disputes between the US and Iran in recent months as part of a decades-old program to combat terrorism — known as “Rewards of Justice.”
A top official at the State Department made the offer in an Aug. 26 email, according to the Financial Times, which obtained copies of the correspondence and spoke to the official about it.
“This is Brian Hook . . . I work for secretary of state Mike Pompeo and serve as the US Representative for Iran,” the email reportedly stated. “I am writing with good news.”
After offering the cash to the captain of the Grace 1 — which was seized by the UK off the coast of Gibraltar last month — Hook reportedly said: “With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age.”
“If you choose not to take this easy path, life will be much harder for you,” he added.
Hook told FT that the email was one of several that he sent in recent months “in an effort to scare mariners into understanding that helping Iran evade sanctions comes at a heavy price,” the newspaper reports.
The campaign stems from the 1984 “Reward of Justice” program. DoS officials confirmed to The Post that the US had started using the program again recently in a bid to target Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The government has been offering rewards of up to $15 million “for information that helps the US disrupt Iranian illicit activities.”
“We have conducted extensive outreach to several ship captains as well as shipping companies warning them of the consequences of providing support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” explained a DoS spokesperson. “The Reward for Justice program is available to anyone who helps disrupt IRGC operations.”
Hook told FT that Iran ultimately knows “that the success of our pressure campaign depends on vigorous enforcement of oil sanctions.”
“We have collapsed Iran’s oil exports in a short period of time,” he said. “We are working very closely with the maritime community to disrupt and deter illicit oil exports.”
The money being offered by the senior official was supposed to get the captain, Akhilesh Kumar, who is Indian, to pilot the ship to a country where it could be impounded on behalf of the US, according to FT.
Hook’s email came just 11 days after the Grace 1 was released by Gibraltar following a standoff between the US and Iran. The ship had been seized on suspicions that it was carrying Iranian oil to Syria — a major breach of EU sanctions.
A US bid to seize control of the vessel, now dubbed the Adrian Darya 1, failed and the UK let it go on a promise that the ship would not travel to Syria. The Trump administration has accused Iran of threatening vessels in the Gulf. Iran has denied the claims.
Additional reporting by Nikki Schwab