Who’s your Agha Dadi?

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One of the things we initially overlooked in the recent media investigation into SPND front company DamavandTec was a single fleeting reference to an IRGC commander named Hossein Ali Agha Dadi. Practically as a throwaway line, the reporters stated that Agha Dadi “has held senior roles in companies responsible for Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programmes, including development of the Shahed model given by Iran to Russia to attack Ukraine.”

We must admit we’d not heard of Agha Dadi before, despite being both Extremely Online and obsessed with everything to do with Iran’s military and WMD-related programmes. So, we did our usual online search for Agha Dadi’s name – starting in English – and found virtually nothing. 

That’s the kind of challenge that we immediately had to pursue! Turns out that Agha Dadi is quite an interesting figure, and we’re surprised that he has never found much of a public profile. Let’s remedy that.

Come to Dadi

First we hit Iranian business records to see what we could dig up. Searching in Farsi, we found that Agha Dadi (حسینعلی آقادادی or حسینعلی آقا دادی, national ID: 1282685597) has previously held a series of high-ranking positions both in Iran’s defence industries and in the IRGC’s moneymaking arms. To name a few of these roles, he was:

  • Former chairman of Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA) (صنایع هواپیماسازی ایران, national ID: 10100722073). HESA manufactures military aircraft and drones for Iran’s Ministry of Defence. 
  • Former inspector of Information Systems of Iran (ISIRAN) (شرکت ایز ایران, national ID: 10100580840). ISIRAN is an arm of the Ministry of Defence devoted to manufacturing IT and communications equipment for military use. 
  • Former chairman of Marjan Petrochemical (پتروشیمی مرجان, national ID: ), a petrochemical plant which is part of the Supreme Leader’s sprawling conglomerate of oil sector financial interests.

Get the Farsi Persian spelling of Agha Dadi’s name correct in your Googling and you can also find that he has done a little bit of promotional work in the media for Iran’s military programmes. Here he is in 2018 handing out awards for Koran recital at HESA. And here he is the same year on IRIB TV, promoting MODAFL’s work on domestic drone and fighter jet production.

Dadi Issues

Agha Dadi’s recent work is even more interesting. First of all, business records show that he’s still holding senior roles in Iran’s aviation sector, running a couple of aircraft services companies that probably facilitate procurement and proliferation of drones and related technology. These roles are:

  • Current CEO of Simorgh Aviation MRO (شرکت توسعه تعمیرات هوایی سیمرغ, national ID: 14006277235).
  • Current Director of Pars Technique Aviation (شرکت مهندسی تعمیرات و خدمات هوایی پارس تکنیک نیکو, national ID: 10320511656).

But that’s not his most interesting current role. As the media investigation into DamavandTec noted, Agha Dadi is a board member (and until recently, was also CEO) of an Iranian company called Imen Gostar Raman Kish (شرکت ایمن گستر رامان کیش, also known as RSD Company, Imen Gostar Kish, and SSI). 
Imen Gostar Raman Kish makes and sells radiation detection equipment, and is a very poorly-disguised front company for SPND’s Institute of Applied Physics (IAP). How poorly disguised, you ask? Well, they openly sell IAP-branded equipment. And their corporate logo is a visual twist on the IAP’s.

And Imen Gostar’s employee roster is full to the gills of SPND cronies. Imen Gostar is dumb enough to put their entire current corporate structure on their website, and it’s a veritable who’s who of SPND personnel.

(Deep breath for the non-Farsi Persian speakers: that’s Mohammad Reza Zare Zogalchali; Ali Fouladvand; Bagher Dibaee; Mansour Rezapour; Mahmoud Ghorbani; Mohammad Sadegh Naseri; Shahram Sedighi Daryani; Eskandar Asadi Amirabadi; Reza Sanagouie Hasan Kiade, Meysam Taleb Tabar Ahangar; Reza Joulaei Sani Thani; and Esmail Farahi Lakeh.)

And that’s not to mention the former directors of Imen Gostar, who you can find in old Iranian business records. They’re practically an SPND hall of fame: Mohsen Foroughizadeh Moghadam, Ali Gharibian, Bahman Hadavand Siri, Eskandar Asadi Amirabadi, Parviz Katani, and Yadollah Lotfi.

Dadi’s Home

Amongst all of the second-rate SPND scientists and administrators listed above, we think that the presence of kingpin IRGC logistician Agha Dadi in the corporate structure of Imen Gostar Raman Kish is rather exceptional. And we’re intrigued by the idea that the Iranian government has put such a heavyweight (in all senses of the word) in charge of this SPND entity. 

We’d say that Imen Gostar Raman Kish (or whatever they next change their name to) will be a key channel through which Iran will attempt to obtain the sensitive items that the country needs to replenish its destroyed nuclear programme.

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