Defense Ministry: No Israeli technology passed on to Iran

The Export Control Department of the Defense Ministry completed its investigation of Allot Communications, a Hod Hasharon-based high-tech company, found that their technology exports did not reach Iran, as alleged.

A Bloomberg report from Dec. 23, 2011 revealed that Allot had been selling its Internet surveillance equipment to a supplier in Denmark, which in turn removed all packaging and labels and sold it to an Iranian distributor whose first name was Hossein. The product, called NetEnforcer, has reportedly been used in the past by other totalitarian regimes to identify and monitor Internet behavior, track cell phones and intercept email.

Private investigator Ronen Solomon, who specializes in identifying Iranian technology smugglers, found that Hossein was in fact Hossein Derger, president of the private Iranian Internet company Pegah Communications. The Tehran-based company provides Internet security solutions.

Until the Bloomberg report surfaced, the transactions had gone unnoticed by Israel, despite an extensive paper trail in Denmark. The report revealed that the sales began in 2006, in tandem with the approval for export to Iran procured by high-tech company Rantech. Allot issued a statement following the report's publication claiming that the Bloomberg report included a number of inaccuracies.

Israel's Defense Ministry officially certified that the product is intended for civilian use and therefore is not supervised by them. They added that the company is not on the list of companies that are allowed to export security technology abroad and that the product exported to Denmark has no security characteristics.