Heineken’s Ghost Operation – How the World’s Second-Largest Brewer Hid a Seven-Year Investment in Iran

Posted on April 21, 2026 in Heineken, Iran, Sabotage

Heineken secretly operated in Iran for seven years – and never disclosed the investment in a press release or annual report. The revelation, uncovered by Follow the Money, follows a pattern of concealment that mirrors the brewer’s conduct in Russia, where it launched 61 new products while publicly pledging to leave the country.

In April 2018, Heineken acquired a 51% controlling stake in Castle Noush, an Iranian producer of non-alcoholic malt beverages, through a partnership with the Solico Group – described as Iran’s largest private food processing and distribution company. The investment was never announced, never mentioned in an annual report, and disclosed only in an obscure annex to financial statements filed with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce.

Follow the Money (FTM) – the Dutch investigative journalism platform – uncovered the operation after receiving an anonymous tip in 2020 from an individual with internal knowledge who described it as “a ghost operation, focused on the production of malt-based soft drinks.” Industry experts and Iran analysts told FTM they had been unaware of Heineken’s presence in the country.

The secrecy was deliberate. A former Castle Noush employee told FTM that Heineken was concerned about public opinion in the United States – a key market for the brewer. Heineken staff who relocated to Iran to work for Castle Noush listed their location on LinkedIn as “the Middle East,” avoiding any mention of Iran or the company name. One financial director was more candid, listing responsibilities including “sanction compliance” and “operating in high uncertainty and volatile environment.”

Disclosure Failures and a Five-Year Filing Gap

Heineken’s only written public evidence of the Iran investment came from shareholdings lists filed with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce between 2018 and 2020. Since 2020, the company has not filed the annual overview of holdings of at least 20% that Dutch law requires – a five-year gap that researchers at the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) called unusual for a company of Heineken’s size.

SOMO researcher Vincent Kiezebrink questioned whether the failure was an oversight by auditors or whether Heineken was “trying to hide something.” He pointed to the range of risks that apply in Heineken’s case – tax exposure, the risk of breaching sanctions, and potential involvement in human rights violations.

Heineken told FTM it sold its remaining stake in Castle Noush in September 2025 and completely withdrew from Iran. But this claim cannot be independently verified precisely because of the filing gap. When FTM requested the missing shareholdings lists, Heineken did not respond.

The Russia Playbook

The Iran case follows a pattern that should by now be familiar. In 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Heineken publicly pledged to exit the Russian market. Behind the scenes, the company was doing the opposite. Investigative journalist Olivier van Beemen revealed through FTM that Heineken launched 61 new products on the Russian market in 2022 alone – accounting for 720,000 hectolitres of additional sales – while telling the world it was winding down.

As Movendi International documented at the time, Heineken’s strategy relied on the fact that its corporate name and its flagship beer brand are identical. By suspending only the Heineken-branded beer – which accounted for roughly 12% of Russian sales volume – the company could claim to have taken action while continuing to produce, advertise, and sell more than 35 other brands. A whistleblower described the approach as cynical, noting that Heineken was capitalising on the departure of competitors like Budweiser and Carlsberg to expand its own market share.

Sanctions Exposure and the IRGC

Heineken’s partnership with the Solico Group raises serious questions about sanctions compliance. Iran experts consulted by FTM said it is highly improbable that a company of Solico’s stature has no connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – an elite military body designated as a terrorist organisation by both the United States (since 2019) and the European Union (since 2025).

Sanctions expert Mahdi Ghodsi of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies told FTM that Heineken also risked breaching US sanctions because investing in production facilities in Iran is not permitted without prior authorisation from Washington – even though trade in food and drink is generally allowed under humanitarian exemptions. Heineken owns 15 US subsidiaries and is listed on the US stock exchange, placing it under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission. FTM referred the case to the US Department of the Treasury, which has not responded.

Heineken did not answer FTM’s questions about whether it had reported its Iranian investment to US authorities or applied for a licence to operate in the country.

Iran also illustrates how the alcohol industry uses non-alcoholic products to maintain brand presence in markets where alcohol is largely unavailable. Producing, selling, and using alcohol is banned under Iran’s Islamic law, and the malt beverages produced by Castle Noush are known locally as “Islamic beers.” A former Heineken employee told FTM that the company viewed Iran’s non-alcoholic beer market – around 6 million hectolitres – as an attractive growth opportunity, particularly given the country’s large youth population.

A photograph obtained by FTM shows a local brand, Shams, produced by Castle Noush, whose label closely resembles Heineken’s. According to Iran’s official gazette, Heineken granted Castle Noush a production licence for the Amstel brand in 2020 – though Heineken told FTM it did not launch any of its global brands in Iran.

A REPEATING Pattern

Heineken’s record of doing business with sanctioned states, authoritarian regimes, and partners implicated in human rights abuses – and concealing or minimising that involvement – is extensive. FTM has previously revealed that Heineken profits from the repression of Uyghurs in China through its partnership with state-owned CR Beer, which sources hops from farms in Xinjiang linked to coercive labour. The company was added to Brazil’s “dirty list” for labour conditions analogous to slavery in 2023. And investigative journalist Olivier van Beemen documented years of unethical conduct across Africa – including complicity with authoritarian regimes – in his book Heineken in Africa.

The Dutch shareholders association VEB told FTM it was surprised by Heineken’s failure to be transparent about its holdings. Deputy director Joost Schmets noted that reputation matters for a company selling an “emotional product” – and warned that Heineken’s “half-hearted withdrawal” from Russia had already caused significant damage.

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