The name Nader Ali Saboori Haghighi probably doesn’t ring a bell. You might guess that Nader Schrüder is a German national. Ruiz Leonardo sounds Brazilian or Portuguese, perhaps? In fact, all three names belong to the same man—well known across the United States, Germany, South America, Iran, and Indonesia.
Recently, this man—whose biography reads like a real-life “Catch Me If You Can”—became a resident of central Belgrade.
The capital of Serbia has become a starting point for bypassing U.S. sanctions against Russia—a scheme uncovered entirely by accident, through a bureaucratic decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“WHO IS Nader Ali Saboori Haghighi?”
Nader Ali Saboori Haghighi, a pilot originally from Iran, was among the individuals sanctioned by the US administration on April 4 of this year for violating export regulations.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement, issued a temporary denial order—valid for 180 days—against the company ExHigh Air Space, Jeffrey Chune Omaribu, and the central figure of this story.
The Office’s request was based on evidence that the sanctioned individuals were in possession of controlled aircraft parts and were seeking to acquire more. Their ultimate goal was to resell the parts in Russia, in violation of current regulations.
So why are we interested in an aircraft parts smuggler—an Iranian, at that—with no clear ties to Serbia?
While the associated companies are registered in Kenya, Haghighi listed his residence as Belgrade, right in the city center, on Dalmatinska Street.
“THE PHANTOM PILOT”
Haghighi’s story begins in the late 1990s, when he was first arrested in the US state of Arizona.
There, he was charged and convicted for multiple thefts of aircraft parts, as well as for false representation.
After serving time, he vanished. Years passed before Haghighi resurfaced—this time in Switzerland and under a new name: Ruiz Leonardo. But once he realized that authorities were investigating him for fraud, he fled the country, reappearing in late 2009 at the Strausberg airfield near Berlin, which became his new base of operations.
“THE BORNHOLM CRASH”
There, he worked as a pilot flying a Learjet 24D until Saturday, September 15, 2012, when he crashed near the Bornholm-Rønne Airport in Denmark, just an hour after taking off from Germany. There was one other passenger onboard, and Haghighi had organized the flight while posing as an independent air carrier.
It turned out that after takeoff, Haghighi canceled his flight plan and continued flying without consulting a map. He told Danish air traffic control that the plane was turning toward its final destination, and was granted clearance to land.
On final approach, both engines failed. The plane stalled and crashed into a cornfield. A preliminary technical investigation revealed that both engines had failed due to fuel exhaustion. Investigators concluded that Haghighi had failed to activate the fuselage pump that would have allowed him to access fuel stored in the center tank, relying instead solely on the wing tanks for the entire flight.
Once those tanks were empty, the crash was inevitable. And with that crash, the myth of Haghighi as a pilot came crashing down as well—unveiling a sprawling international fraud.
IDENTITY THEFT
At the crash site, investigators discovered a US pilot’s license under the name Daniel George.
It turned out Haghighi had stolen the identity of an American pilot, Daniel George from Texas. He had entered his own address into George’s records in the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) registry and called the agency to have a pilot’s license mailed to him.
Without asking further questions, the FAA agent sent Haghighi a license bearing George’s name.
The entire scam might have gone unnoticed had the real Daniel George not contacted the FAA after seeing a notice about a new pilot’s license in his email inbox.
But even that didn’t stop Haghighi—he called the FAA again, requested a reissue, and gave them a new address.
Once again, the FAA mailed the license—no questions asked!
This time it reached Haghighi, and he used it to fly the Learjet 24D that ended its career in a Danish cornfield.
For this fraud—and for endangering public safety—he was sentenced to 10 months in prison on September 20, 2012.
PILOT FOR AN INDONESIAN AIRLINE
Even after serving time in Denmark, Haghighi continued manipulating the FAA. Once released, US prosecutors said he returned to Iran.
Sometime afterward, Haghighi requested a medical certificate from the FAA. All he had to do to obtain it was change one letter in his surname and alter his year of birth.
Thanks to that tweak, Haghighi returned to flying. In 2014, he got a job as a pilot with the Indonesian airline Susi Air, under the name Nader Schrüder. But his new employers weren’t so easily fooled. They quickly discovered that the passport number he provided wasn’t his and alerted US authorities.
He was arrested in Panama after landing a plane there. He was soon extradited to the United States. On March 9, 2015, he was sentenced in Houston to 27 months in prison for using the stolen personal data of American pilot Daniel George to fraudulently obtain an FAA airline transport pilot certificate and a flight instructor certificate.
Apparently, prison didn’t extinguish Haghighi’s passion for flying. Not long after his release, he found a new plane—a Learjet 35—and started flying again.
ARREST IN PARAGUAY
His latest adventure didn’t last long. He was arrested again, this time in Paraguay, while attempting to cross the border with forged documents.
Also arrested under the same indictment was Venezuelan national José Sosa, whom Nader had been transporting. Allegedly, they were planning to organize the prison break of a criminal associate.
The two had entered Paraguay from the Bolivian city of Cochabamba. According to a local prosecutor, the pilot Nader Saburi was detained over “administrative irregularities” related to his pilot’s license. The Learjet 35 they flew into Paraguay through Silvio Pettirossi International Airport was seized by authorities.
“THE PILOT NEXT DOOR”
Seven years have passed since that arrest in Paraguay. In the meantime, there had been no trace of this junior Frank Abagnale.
That remained the case—until April 4 of this year, when his name resurfaced on a sanctions list, complete with an address in Belgrade.
All signs point to the fact that Nader hasn’t given up on his dream of flying—only now, it seems, he’s shifted from passenger to cargo transport.
Nedeljnik attempted to track him down at the address cited by US authorities—Dalmatinska Street, in the heart of Belgrade.
But the building there is a residential complex. No surname matching the pilot’s appears on the entry board.
None of the residents, mail carriers, or anyone else we could ask recognized Haghighi from the photo.
We sent inquiries to Serbia’s Civil Aviation Directorate to ask whether Haghighi appears in their pilot registry. We received no response.
So where did US federal authorities get the idea that he’s in Belgrade?
Serbian immigration services rarely—if ever—check whether a registered address is actually being lived in by the listed person.
The man in question is known for serial forgery. It’s entirely possible that he used a similar scheme to throw US authorities off his trail. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Regardless of whether he is in Belgrade or not, one thing is certain:
It’s summed up best by something Haghighi once told The Boston Globe reporters:
“If you know the right person and pay the right price the right way, the sky turns green.”
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