British Petroleum's Oil Spill is Latest Crime in a Criminal History

Far from being a "good corporate citizen," BP is a corporation that has made its huge profits through a history of crimes around the globe. Originally named the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, the company was founded in 1908, as the first company plundering the oil reserves of the Middle East. Anglo-Persian was renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1935 and was subsequently renamed the British Petroleum Company in 1954.

The British government owned a majority share of the company and what little revenue was handed to the Iranian government was paid back to British and other European creditors. In 1947, for example, AIOC reported after-tax profits of £40 million, while giving Iran a mere £7 million.

The company subjected Iranian workers to deplorable working conditions, paying Iranians considerably less than foreigners. The following passage is how the director of Iran’s Petroleum Institute described those conditions.'

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