Rouhani: We have handed over the southern borders to the IRGC to combat smuggling, but 'they are losing track'

Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, referred to the economic challenges in the country, including bankrupt financial institutions and 'those behind them,' while discussing smuggling. He stated that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) captures one out of every ten smugglers at the southern borders. On Thursday, March 7, during a meeting of the administrative council in Gilan, he said, 'We have handed over the southern borders to the IRGC to combat smuggling; well, ten smugglings occur, and they catch one of them; they lose track; it is very difficult work.' Iranian officials have repeatedly mentioned the involvement of the IRGC in smuggling over the years, and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also spoke of 'smuggling brothers.' Rouhani had criticized the 'government with guns,' but in March of last year, during a trip to Bandar Abbas, he announced that the responsibility for combating smuggling at the southern borders had officially been assigned to the IRGC. Before that, since 2002, the responsibility for combating smuggling was with the 'Headquarters for Combating Currency and Commodity Smuggling,' a subsidiary of the presidency. Although a few days after Rouhani's remarks in Bandar Abbas, Ramadan Sharif, the IRGC spokesman, promised that 'details and the executive mechanism' would soon be explained, the reasons for this 'transfer of responsibility' and the details of the IRGC's duties in this regard were not published. In his recent remarks at the Gilan administrative council, Rouhani also referred to the issue of 'unauthorized' financial institutions, stating, 'They came to the streets and shouted; the Ministry of Intelligence should publish ten volumes and say who was behind these events.' The Iranian president did not provide details on this issue and did not name those he considered 'behind these events.' The announcement of the bankruptcy of some financial and credit institutions in Iran last year led to widespread protests from depositors of these institutions, which later joined the nationwide protests in January 2018. Statements have previously been made regarding the managers of these financial institutions and their supporters in various sectors of the Islamic Republic. Among the managers of these financial institutions, individuals such as Bahabolvafl Mirali and Mehdi Ramazani, managers of 'Samaneh al-Hajj,' have been sentenced to prison. None of the managers of the bankrupt financial institutions were mentioned in the special courts for combating economic corruption. In his remarks on Thursday, Rouhani pointed out that these financial institutions had injected 'about 250 trillion tomans' of liquidity, saying, 'The liquidity was created by those who established these financial institutions and deceived the people. Now some of them are in prison.' The Iranian president also, without naming specific individuals or providing details, mentioned that some are exporting goods to Iraq, saying, 'We ask why you are not bringing back currency, and they say we do not take dollars; we take dinars and sell them right at the border. We know it is not right. They are taking dollars.' Regarding livestock smuggling, Rouhani said, 'When he can pass his sheep over there and sell it at double the price, he does not take the livestock to the slaughterhouse.'