Reuters provided news services worth approximately $4 million to the Iranian Broadcasting Authority (IRIB) and its subsidiary Press TV – both entities subject to U.S. sanctions and linked to the Revolutionary Guards.
The services included texts, videos, and images, which were used, among other things, for government propaganda and the dissemination of forced confessions.
According to leaked documents, Reuters managed payment requests through Payman Jebeli, a senior IRIB official close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and one of the central figures in the regime's information warfare strategy.
One of the invoices, dated April 1, 2020, lists a diverse range of services – including news in Arabic, French, Spanish, a news photo service, and television news – totaling $186,123 for a period of only three months.
The documents raise sharp questions about cooperation between a Western news agency and a media body of a repressive regime, circumventing sanctions and revealing deep involvement in international cognitive warfare.