Christopher Tappin
businessperson
Christopher Harold Tappin (born November 1946) is a British businessman who is best known for selling weapons parts to Iran in violation of international sanctions and jailed for 33 months in January 2013.
Accusation
In 2005, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents established a front company, Mercury Global Enterprises (MGE). A business acquaintance of Tappin contacted the company initially to buy surveillance equipment. They later enquired about exporting other military hardware without the proper licenses. Shortly before the man was arrested for trying to buy zinc/silver oxide batteries to power MIM-23 Hawk surface-to-air missiles for a customer in Tehran, Tappin was named as an exporter.
US federal authorities allege Tappin tried to buy 50 Eagle-Picher P/N GAP 4328 zinc/silver oxide batteries (National Stock Number: 1420-00-484-8556) between December 2005 and January 2007. The batteries, which were to be exported from the United States to Iran via the Netherlands, are part of the electronics of the Hawk surface-to-air missile. In November 1985, 18 Hawk missiles were shipped to Iran during the Reagan Administration. Tappin maintains as the exporter he thought he was buying car batteries. The US maintains that the batteries were to be exported to Tehran without the necessary US government approval.
“Christopher Tappin” enters the record as businessperson. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Christopher, Tappin and businessperson can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Christopher Tappin” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Christopher, Tappin and businessperson provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5113318. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 2013, 2005 and 1420.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Christopher Tappin”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Christopher Tappin primary sources, Christopher Tappin archive and Christopher research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Christopher Tappin”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Christopher Tappin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.