[8][9] In 1980 Ghorbanifar was the liaison between the Shah's last Prime Minister, Shahpour Bakhtiar, in exile in Paris, and conspirators in the Iranian armed forces organising what is sometimes known as the Nojeh Coup.
[10] Ghorbanifar had owned a shipping company and headed the logistics branch of the Niqab network which organised the civilian part of the plot.
Oliver North later claimed that Ghorbanifar had given him the idea for diverting profits from TOW and HAWK missile sales to Iran to the Nicaraguan Contras.
[4] Ghorbanifar's suspected duplicity during the Iran–Contra deal led CIA Director William Casey to order three separate lie-detector tests, all of which he failed.
"[17] Former CIA official and Iran-Contra figure George Cave, who was involved in the 1984 decision to issue the burn notice,[18] has described Ghorbanifar as "the most totally amoral person I have ever met".
"[21] According to a report in Time, Ghorbanifar's links with the CIA led to internal disputes, with the counter-terrorism division supporting him and Middle East officers attempting to discredit him.
[24] In December 2001 Michael Ledeen organized a three-day meeting in Rome, Italy between Manucher Ghorbanifar and US Defense Intelligence Agency officials Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode.
The meeting concerned a secret offer from reportedly dissident Iranian officials to provide information relevant to the War on Terrorism and Iran's relationship with terrorists in Afghanistan.
[27][28] Ghorbanifar was linked to the Niger uranium forgeries which were forged documents initially released by SISMI that would later be used partly as justification for the Iraq War.