Minister Reveals Details of Operation to Foil Theft of Iran's Documents by BBC
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alawi elaborated on a recent operation to thwart a plot by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that intended to steal artistic, historical and cultural documents from the country's archive centers.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Tehran on Tuesday, Alawi said the Iranian intelligence agents had identified the theft plan since the very first day, but withheld from taking action to find out about the plan and purposes behind it.
Back on September 28, the Intelligence Ministry announced in a statement that the London-based media outlet (BBC) had used its “affiliated elements” inside Iran to steal the historical documents from the country’s official archive centers.
The statement had also described the move as violation of the international law and the media conventions and regulations.
Elsewhere in the news conference, Alawi said an individual inside Iran had attempted to gain access to the archives and to sell them to a middleman in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who was affiliated with the BBC.
The one in Iran wanted to deliver those documents to the middleman in exchange for a trifling sum of money, while the archive was worth at least billions of dollars, the minister explained.