Indeed, I welcome your question and I thank you for the opportunity.
I mentioned many companies around western Europe and North America. I would like to draw your attention to the Canadian branch of an Iranian company called Kala Naft Canada Limited, based in Calgary. Kala Naft is currently being discussed by the European Union for designation as a front company of the Iranian regime because of its active involvement and implication in illegal procurement efforts across western Europe. Now, I do not have any concrete evidence of a specific case where the Canadian branch has sought to acquire technology and transfer it illegally to Iran; but it is clear, and there is evidence, that this company is involved in such activities across the four continents where it has branches. It is a company that's linked to the regime and it is a company that the European Union plans to designate and sanction because of its illegal activities.
In addition to that, I would like to highlight and bring to your attention, by way of example, the way Iran seeks to acquire technology it can use for the advancement of its nuclear program. By way of example, I want to refer to a deal that Iran struck in 2005 with a German company called WIRTH, a world leader in the production of earth-moving equipment. These are big machines that will be used to dig tunnels and deep holes underground for important civil infrastructure projects. This technology has been acquired by Iran, ostensibly in a legal fashion, for projects that are, again, ostensibly entirely civilian and legitimate. However, the clients of WIRTH in Iran are all directly linked to the Revolutionary Guards.
This is a way that the Iranian companies operate in their procurement efforts across the western world, including North America. They acquire technology that is ostensibly bought for entirely legitimate purposes. In the case of this German company, the machines were bought in order to build a water conveyance tunnel by the Tehran regional water authority. However, open sources demonstrate conclusively that this technology has been diverted to entities that are designated by the U.S. Department of Treasury and are sanctioned by the European Union or the United Nations, and that it's technology that will eventually end up being used for purposes not for which it was sold.
So I want to draw your attention to the fact that Iran uses all means and tools at its disposal, including creating front companies registered in foreign countries, to procure the kind of technology it needs to build and advance its nuclear program. In the case of the tunnel boring machines, obviously this is not something they will use directly in building a reprocessing plant for fuel, for example, but it is something they will use to dig deep underground and build clandestine facilities under their mountains.
Thank you.