IRGC Reports Arrest of One of the 'Largest Bank Debtors'

On Wednesday, the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that it has arrested and imprisoned 'one of the largest bank debtors and economic corruptors.' According to the report from IRGC News on Wednesday, March 4, this military-security organization has detained a major bank debtor identified as 'H.A.' known as 'Dariush.' The report further states that he, along with his brothers and other 'infiltrators,' established a network of economic corruption and exploited the conditions of the country's sanctions. The IRGC's statement adds that 'this network aimed to deepen its activities and achieve its nefarious goals by corrupting individuals through the payment of substantial bribes and organizing houses of corruption.' This individual is also one of the main convicts in the well-known 'economic corruption' case from 1997, with various charges including disrupting the country's economic order, currency smuggling, goods smuggling, antiquities smuggling, and paying large bribes within the judicial system. The report does not specify what the famous corruption case of 1997 refers to, but that year two significant embezzlement cases were prominent in Iran, one related to the Al-Makasib Company affiliated with the National Bank of Iran and the other involving former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi. The IRGC stated that Mr. 'H.A.' after being released from prison in 2001 managed to return to the country's economic space by exploiting economic and legal loopholes and taking advantage of certain individuals and infiltrators, operating in the field of 'essential goods and necessities for the people.' The statement continues: 'One of the most important aspects of this case was that alongside the intensification of sanctions by enemies in recent years, he exploited the country's economic conditions and obtained large amounts of reference currency, which instead of being used for importing essential goods and providing for the people's needs, he invested in high-rise construction, with one of his properties being a 7,000 square meter personal house. The portion that was allocated for purchasing essential goods was also sold domestically as smuggled goods at high profits.' In recent years, several major financial corruption cases have been brought before Iranian courts. In addition to the case of Babak Zanjani and the well-known 3,000 billion toman embezzlement case of the 'Meh-Afarid Amir-Khosravi' company, recently Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, the former first vice president of Iran, was also sentenced to five years in prison and a monetary fine. In June of this year, the Iranian Parliament published a report related to the last five years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, stating: 'At a time when the country was facing a severe currency shortage, 50% of the allocated currencies for importers for essential goods never led to the import of the intended goods, and based on speculations, either they were sold in the free market at free rates or used for importing other goods such as luxury cars.' In other cases, some importers brought goods into the country with reference currency and sold them based on free currency. On the other hand, Eshaq Jahangiri, the first vice president of Hassan Rouhani, announced this year that 'based on the previous government's measures to control currency prices, billions of dollars of the country's money were sold to exchange offices in Dubai and Istanbul in the form of remittances or cash, and within 17 months, 22 billion dollars of the country's money was exported abroad, which is a very surprising figure.'