The 108 Billion Toman Case of a Bank Manager in Iran

The issue of financial and administrative corruption in Iran has seen a growing trend since the early years following the Islamic Revolution, with numerous cases and convictions of corrupt individuals coming to light. In the latest example of such corruption, Nasser Saraj, the head of the General Inspection Organization of the country, reported on the investigation of a banking corruption case involving an income of 108 billion tomans related to one of the bank managers, without naming the individual. In the history of economic corruption during the 37 years of the Islamic Republic, aside from some defendants from the early years of the 57 Revolution who were executed due to their economic ties with the Pahlavi regime, the issuance and execution of death sentences for financial corruption defendants has been rare. The only two names associated with such sentences are Fazel Khodadad, who was executed in the early 1990s for embezzling 123 billion tomans, and Meh Afarid Amir Khosravi, who was accused of the largest embezzlement in Iran's history, approximately 3000 billion tomans, and was executed in 2014. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the first deputy of the judiciary, emphasized in a special news interview in 2011 that the judiciary is under pressure when investigating such corruption cases. However, what is the reason for the continued upward trend of economic and administrative corruption in Iran? Taghi Rahmani, a national-religious activist, explains this issue to Radio Farda, stating that in 2005, Mr. Ali Rabiei, who is now the Minister of Labor, published a book titled "Long Live Corruption". He refers to three types of corruption from an academic and scientific perspective, based on corruption experts, which are case corruption, elite corruption, and structural corruption. The latter is becoming institutionalized in Iranian society for various reasons. The issue of the unaccountable and corrupt nature of a military institution like the Revolutionary Guards, which has extensive economic activities, is one of the issues that Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, referred to in a national conference on improving administrative health and combating corruption in 2014, albeit without mentioning the Revolutionary Guards. Rouhani also expressed concern about reaching a point where the stigma of economic corruption in the country would be broken. According to a report on July 5, by ILNA, the Iranian Labor News Agency, Nasser Saraj stated that this year more than 24,948 warnings have been issued to government agencies regarding corrupt practices, saying, "If the warnings from the Inspection Organization bear fruit, we will certainly deal with the offenders." He also emphasized that there are serious problems in the country's tax sector, mentioning that half of the cash in the possession of Babak Zanjani has not returned to the treasury.