Iran’s Civil Aviation Authority confirmed on Friday that Iran has received four used passenger jets to replace aircraft in its aging fleet despite sanctions.

“Four Airbus A340 aircraft have arrived in the country and will soon be used in civil aviation,” the agency’s spokesperson told the Khabar-Online news site. He did not specify how Iran managed to purchase the four planes despite sanctions, Agerpres reports.

According to press reports, the planes were retired by Turkish Airlines in 2019 and later parked at Johannesburg Airport in South Africa by the new owner company. Turkish Airlines has yet to comment.

According to media reports, all four planes with Burkina Faso registration numbers took off from Johannesburg last week. Officially, they were supposed to fly to an airport in Uzbekistan, but landed in Tehran.

A spokesman for Iran’s aviation authority admitted that the sanctions had made it extremely difficult to purchase new passenger planes. That means the country has had to “drive with the lights off,” he said, using a Farsi term for transactions that aren’t executed properly.

The West has renewed sanctions against Iran’s leadership after a brutal crackdown on large-scale anti-government protests that began in September.