Huawei—CFO Meng Wanzhou arrested for fraud to circumvent US Iran sanctions; deferred prosecution agreement reached
Meng Wanzhou (CFO and founder's daughter) was arrested in Canada on December 1, 2018 on US extradition request for bank fraud and conspiracy to circumvent Iran sanctions. Charges involved long-running scheme where Huawei employees lied about relationship to Skycom, an Iran affiliate, enabling approximately $100M in US-dollar transactions supporting Iran work (2010-2014). Meng reached deferred prosecution agreement September 24, 2021, admitting misleading HSBC. Charges dismissed December 1, 2022.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authoritarian Compliance | +toward | secondary | -0.50 |
| Corporate Governance | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.885 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (critical ×2) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
CFO arrested in Canada on US charges of Iran sanctions fraud
Meng Wanzhou arrested December 1, 2018 at Vancouver airport on US extradition request for bank fraud and conspiracy to circumvent Iran sanctions. Charges involved Huawei lying about Skycom relationship to enable $100M in US transactions supporting Iran work. Meng reached deferred prosecution agreement September 2021, charges dismissed December 2022.