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Aircraft parked at Wilson Airport in Nairobi on May 2, 2019.
In January 2025, a shadowy Madagascan aviation company sought permission from the country’s civil aviation authority to ferry five Boeing 777 aircraft from China to Kenya for maintenance.
However, what appeared to be a routine administrative request dragged the Madagascan government into an international aviation scandal after the five wide-bodied planes ended up in the fleet of a sanctioned Iranian airline instead of being flown to Kenya for maintenance as indicated.
Three years earlier, a Nairobi-based aviation company had acquired a Boeing 737 from Latvia and registered it in Kenya. But in just four months, the plane had been smuggled to Iran, where it was registered as EP-JIA, according to data from the aviation site Airfleets.
Despite being one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, Iran has been able to outsmart the West and circumvent international sanctions through a complex smuggling scheme that has seen it acquire Western-made aircraft and spare parts. This is normally carried out by the country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which sets up shadowy companies in countries with limited transparency, such as Kenya, before using them to acquire and transfer planes to Iran without raising suspicion.
According to a report by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a leading Israeli security think tank founded by General Aharon Yariv, former Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence chief, Iran typically uses local proxies to register and run these companies while obscuring the true ownership.
Apart from Madagascar and Kenya, other countries identified as conduits for smuggling planes to Iran include Gambia, South Africa, Namibia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Ukraine. Corruption among officials in these countries makes it easier for “local intermediaries to handle forged paperwork and the final smuggling of Western aircraft into Iran.”
How did this play out in Madagascar’s case?
In January 2025, the directors of the little-known UDAAN Aviation approached the Madagascan government with an offer to establish a national carrier that would serve the Indian Ocean island nation. They claimed they had already obtained five used Boeing 777 aircraft in China but required registration certificates so the planes could be ferried from China to an approved maintenance facility in Nairobi.
The five aircraft were originally owned by Singapore Airlines until 2019, when the national carrier transferred them to its Thailand-based subsidiary Nokscoot. When Nokscoot collapsed at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Singapore Airlines repossessed the aircraft and deregistered them. The planes later ended up parked at an airport in Lanzhou, China, where they remained until they were mysteriously acquired by UDAAN Aviation.
Nevertheless, the Madagascan Civil Aviation Authority acceded to UDAAN Aviation’s request on January 17, 2025, granting the five aircraft provisional registrations under a three-month permit. The regulator emphasised that the registrations were being granted specifically to allow the aircraft to be ferried to Kenya for maintenance.
But by the time the registration certificates were due to expire in April 2025, the planes had not arrived in Kenya for the stated maintenance. During this period, the aviation company’s directors were allegedly working in cahoots with corrupt Madagascan officials and altered the expiry dates of the registration certificates, extending them from April 12, 2025, to July 12, 2025.
Although the aircraft later left China in June 2025, they never flew to Kenya as planned. Instead, they headed to Cambodia, where the country’s civil aviation authority noted alterations in the registration documents. Before the Madagascan government could act, however, the planes had already departed Cambodia, disappeared from radar over Afghanistan and entered Iran.
According to INSS, this operational method is known in fraud investigations as “burst activity”, a series of rapid transfers designed to prevent law enforcement agencies from detecting illicit activity in real time.
Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation later confirmed the arrival of the five aircraft, stating that the transaction was legal but conducted through “our unique ways”. The planes were subsequently absorbed into the fleet of the sanctioned airline Mahan Air and assigned Iranian registration numbers 5R-RIS, 5R-ISA, 5R-HER, 5R-IJA and 5R-RIJ.
The fact that the acquisition went unnoticed until the aircraft reached Iran and was absorbed into Mahan Air’s fleet illustrates the effectiveness of Tehran’s strategy to circumvent sanctions and acquire Western-made aircraft and spare parts.
Mahan Air was sanctioned in 2011 by the US Department of the Treasury over allegations that it provided material, technological and financial support to the IRGC’s Quds Force (IRGC-QF). A statement by the US Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said: “Mahan Air’s close coordination with the IRGC-QF — secretly ferrying operatives, weapons and funds on its flights — reveals yet another facet of the IRGC’s extensive infiltration of Iran’s commercial sector to facilitate its support for terrorism.”
The airline was later sanctioned by the European Union over allegations that it ferried missiles and drones to Russia.
In August 2025, the Madagascan government, aware of the diplomatic repercussions of engaging with a sanctioned entity, began investigating how aircraft registered in its jurisdiction had reached Iran unnoticed. The Civil Aviation Authority denied any complicity, noting that the planes had never touched Madagascan soil and that the registration certificates had been falsified.
The regulator said: “The registrations had been issued for the sole purpose of allowing the transfer of the aforementioned aircraft to Kenya for maintenance purposes. The use or reliance on these certificates beyond their validity date is null and void and constitutes attempted forgery or use of forged documents.”
Former Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina,
As Madagascar came under increasing international scrutiny over the scandal, President Andry Rajoelina — who was later forced out of power by the military in October 2025 after protests — dismissed the Minister for Metrology and Transport on July 31, 2025, for approving the aircraft registrations without higher consultation.
More than 30 senior government officials, including the director-general of the Madagascar Civil Aviation Authority, were also arrested and charged. The accusations levelled against them included forgery, money laundering, abuse of office and endangering state security.
The investigation yielded crucial leads after the Madagascan government enlisted the assistance of the FBI. It emerged that UDAAN Aviation was one of several shadowy companies across different continents used by IRGC-linked airlines to bypass international sanctions and expand their fleets.
The company was linked to an Indian businessman, Khushwinder Singh, and Mamy Ravatomanga, a close ally of the then-president Andry Rajoelina. By establishing and managing front and shell companies such as UDAAN Aviation through intermediaries like Ravatomanga and Singh, Iran is able to create a smokescreen that obscures the true ownership and control of the aircraft.
According to INSS, these shell companies typically purchase aircraft from existing airlines, often those that are bankrupt or near bankruptcy. The planes are then ferried to designated facilities in countries such as Kenya before being dispatched on routes that pass close to Iranian airspace.
This allows the aircraft to report a false technical problem and request permission to make an emergency landing in Iran. Once there, they are added to the fleet of Iranian airlines.
One of the companies cited in this regard is a charter airline whose main hub is at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport but whose headquarters are at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The company lists its specialities on LinkedIn as “aircraft charters, aircraft management and aircraft ACMI lease”.
In 2022, the company acquired a 23-year-old Boeing 737-31S from Air Baltic, the Latvian national carrier. The plane was registered by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority in January 2022.
In May 2022 — just four months later — the aircraft made its way to Iran, where it was registered as EP-JIA on May 24, 2022. It joined the fleet of Karun Airlines, a charter carrier owned by the National Iranian Oil Company.
On November 29, 2025, the aircraft was transferred to an Iranian start-up, JSKY Airlines, whose main hub is Isfahan International Airport.
Unlike powerful countries such as China and Russia, which openly facilitate Iranian aviation activities, Kenya and other developing countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, have been accused of allowing their territories to be used as operational spaces by turning a regulatory blind eye, often without direct involvement.
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