Seized Assets of Dabsheh Tea and Kourosh Company to Be Sold

The head of the Organization for Collection and Sale of Seized Assets announced the seizure of a thousand containers belonging to Dabsheh Tea and stated that the assets of Kourosh Company have also been seized in Tehran and Qeshm and will soon be sold. Abdolmajid Ejtahadi, the head of the organization, mentioned on Saturday, July 2, that cars, real estate, and a large number of mobile phones are among the assets of Kourosh Company that will be sold after valuation this month. According to him, the assets of Kourosh Company abroad will also be identified and resolved. Ejtahadi also reported the seizure of a thousand containers of Dabsheh Tea at Shahid Rajaee Port and said, 'Some imported industrial equipment has been handed over to the organization as abandoned. Less than 10% of this tea is inedible and will be destroyed.' The massive financial misconduct in tea imports, later known as the 'Dabsheh Tea case,' was first revealed in Azar 1402 (December 2023) by the General Inspection Organization, which announced that a 'two billion dollar' corruption scheme in tea imports had been carried out by a 'specific group.' Ejei expressed concern about the 'cynicism' of the people following the revelation of major financial corruption cases. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei stated in Ordibehesht this year that the embezzlement and corruption in the Dabsheh Tea case amounted to three billion and seven hundred million dollars, and so far, 45 individuals have been charged, with investigations ongoing for more. He later acknowledged that the exposure of financial corruption cases with large figures like 'Dabsheh Tea' and 'Mobarakeh Steel' has caused public skepticism in Iran and that these cases need to be addressed more quickly. So far, the names of Javad Sadati-Nejad, the former Minister of Agriculture in Ebrahim Raisi's government, and Reza Fatemi Amin, the former Minister of Industry, have been mentioned in this case. Sadati-Nejad was also sentenced to three years in prison on May 25 in relation to another corruption case known as 'animal feed inputs.' Kourosh Company had entered the mobile phone sales market in Iran with the bold claim that it could provide iPhones, which trade between 35 to 40 million tomans in the market, to consumers for 20 million tomans 'by eliminating intermediaries.' This company was accused of defrauding the public last year, and the head of economic security police estimated Kourosh Company's debts to the public at 180 to 200 billion tomans. Meanwhile, domestic media had previously reported that this company, which had an official office and activity license, had committed 'two thousand billion tomans' in fraud.