Dutch supermarket group Spar International has withdrawn the licence for Spar stores in Iran because of claims that the Iranian outlets are being used to get round sanctions.

The Volkskrant said on Monday that hundreds of documents obtained via a whistleblower reveal the “dubious transactions” taking place via Spar Iran.

The licence is owned by an Austrian company called Blue River which asked for a permit to open Spar stores in Iran in 2017. The first four opened in Teheran in 2020.

Europe has imposed sanctions on Iran and Iranian banks are excluded from the international money processing system. Trade is also banned with all organisations which are connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, with the exception of food and medicine.

A whistleblower who worked for the company for years told the Volkskrant that all sorts of goods are being shipped via the Spar licence including speaker phones, storage apparatus and servers which would normally be part of a data centre.

In addition, family members of people on the sanctions list have been travelling to Europe via the Spar licence, including the daughter of a police officer with no business connection to Spar.

The whistleblower reported the problems to Spar International in October 2023 and the documentary evidence has now been seen by the paper.

Several months ago, Spar International said there was no reason to take action but last week, after further questions from the Volkskrant, withdrew the licence after all. An investigation that began a year ago has uncovered “possible irregularities” as well as a “number of breaches of the licencing agreement”, officials told the paper.

The Dutch company, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, claims to have some 14000 stores in 48 countries, making it one of the biggest supermarket groups in the world.