Nowruz 1403 has arrived and people are so overwhelmed with the struggles of daily life that they no longer have much enthusiasm for celebration and joy. Inflation has put a heavy burden on them and taken away their ability to breathe. Unemployment is rampant. If you just spend a few minutes scrolling through Instagram, you will see people of all ages trying to make money by gaining followers. The number of young students who resort to street vending with minimal capital and ask people to follow their social media pages is increasing day by day. The gap between social classes is so wide that the middle class has almost disappeared. The Islamic Republic, which came to power 45 years ago with the slogan of supporting the oppressed and fighting economic corruption, has become a victim of systematic corruption. The scope of this corruption – especially economic corruption – goes beyond government agencies and reaches the level of under-the-table dealings, with embezzlement and fraud reaching astronomical levels.

Embezzlement of 123 billion tomans.

The first person who was executed in the Islamic Republic due to embezzlement was Fazel Khodadad. He was an Iranian merchant and capitalist who fell into the trap of Mohsen Rafiqdoust (one of the founders of the Revolutionary Guards) and in 1971, he bought several pieces of land in northern Tehran from the Foundation of the Oppressed and deposited one billion and 600 million tomans into Rafiqdoust’s account, losing part of his own cash. Perhaps Fazel Khodadad signed his own death sentence from there, as Rafiqdoust not only did not help him, but when in February 1971 the head of the Export Bank discovered the embezzlement of 123 billion tomans, he did not even consider that he had a hand in it and had introduced Fazel Khodadad as an employee of the Export Bank, and so on. Rafiqdoust, who has torn many shirts on his way

The series “Karbaschi”

In 1376, people would sit in front of their televisions to watch the trial of Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a former mayor of Tehran. Mohseni Ejei was the judge of the court and there were verbal arguments between Karbaschi and Ejei the day after the court in the streets, taxis, and people’s conversations. Many remember the court of Karbaschi – the former mayor of Tehran – as the Karbaschi series. He was accused of several charges, including embezzlement of one billion and four hundred and fifty-three million tomans, ninety thousand US dollars, sixty Bahar Azadi coins, and eighty Nima Azadi coins. He ultimately spent two years in prison and was later released with the support of Hashemi Rafsanjani. In those years, a photo of Mohseni Ejei at Karbaschi’s daughter’s wedding was published, which was shocking for people to see. How did these

Shahram Jazayeri 

In the year 1381, a 29-year-old man named Shahram Jazayeri shocked the people with his embezzlement case. His name was on everyone’s lips in the streets and markets, and people were left wondering how a 29-year-old could have registered the biggest and most controversial economic case in Iran under his name. Ali Mojdehi, the prosecutor’s representative at the preliminary court, accused Shahram Jazayeri of creating and establishing about 50 different commercial companies, obtaining false credibility through fraudulent maneuvers, withdrawing 38 billion and 10 million rials at various times and paying it to individuals as bribes and forging documents. He also declared that Jazayeri had colluded in government transactions, seduced bank officials, facilitated and received foreign currency, failed to use facilities in export and import, and created a recession in export and import by making illegal contracts and obtaining considerable amounts through this method. However, Jazayeri did not lose

Meh Afarid Amir Khosrowi

This time, the embezzlement amount went higher. Mah Afarid Amir Khosrowi (Amir Mansournia) broke Shahram Jazayeri’s record in 1390 by embezzling 3 trillion tomans, and the people once again fell into despair. In addition to embezzling from Export Bank, he had also used 400 billion tomans in facilities from the National Bank without any documents or collateral. This is while people had to run around for months, providing numerous documents and having a guarantor, just to get a car loan in the same year. This amount of credit was given to Mah Afarid all at once, yet it must be asked, if he was trustworthy to this extent, why did he stand in court as a defendant with his head held high? It is obvious that in this embezzlement case, there were traces of high-ranking officials of the system, who declared the case closed by executing one

But in this case, Mahmoudreza Khavari, the former CEO of Bank Melli, was also involved, who not only was not prosecuted but also lives in his luxurious home in Canada, and recently, some images of him walking in the streets of this country with shorts were published on social media. It is said that before fleeing Iran, he had bought a luxurious house in the Bridle Path neighborhood. Bridle Path is the name of a wealthy neighborhood in the city of Toronto, located in the province of Ontario, Canada, where many businessmen, artists, and journalists, including Celine Dion, a famous musician, have registered a mansion in their name.

Petrochemical Corruption Case

During the years 1390 to 1397, when the case of corruption in the petrochemical industry caused a lot of commotion, the governments were not idle, but at least 7 to 8 other embezzlement cases were brought up. However, it seemed that people had become accustomed to these news and no longer were shocked by any other number. But the embezzlement of 100 trillion tomans managed to make its way to the top news and social media users were focused on it. Marjan Sheikh Al-Islami Al-Agha, one of the main suspects in this case, like Khavari, lives in his luxurious home in Canada. He embezzled more than 7.4 billion dollars in one of his cases and his former wife, Mahdi Khalaji, announced on Twitter some time after the embezzlement was revealed that she had separated from him and had no knowledge of the embezzlement.

Embezzlement of tea from Dabsh and Kourosh Company

It seems that in the Islamic Republic, there is no limit for embezzlers. The gap between the years in which embezzlement cases are revealed has decreased so much that in the past few months, people have faced two major embezzlement cases. One of these two cases is the Dabash tea case, which was about $3.4 billion.

Governments are colluding in this case to pass the ball to each other. Mohseni Ejei, the head of the judiciary, has stated that in 1400 and 1401, 60% and 70% respectively of the total allocated currency for tea imports was paid to this group, while the amount received in 98 and 99 was 2 and 21 million dollars respectively. Mohseni Ejei said in a speech on December 7, 1402 that the government has not yet referred any corrupt government officials to the judiciary regarding this case and the majority of this embezzlement occurred during the eleventh government.

In fact, the main goal of the government was to say, with the support of the judiciary, that this financial corruption happened in the previous government and we have been innocent, while another young man, with another big fraud, has put the case of Chai Dabsh behind us for a while. Amirhossein Sharifian, the founder of “Kourosh Pardazan Aysa” company, received 20 million tomans from nearly 200,000 Iranian citizens in different cities, promising them an iPhone 13, and it is said that he has fled. Now it is said that 200,000 families have been defrauded, but the winner of this big fraud, after Kourosh Company, is the judiciary, which has pocketed 230,000 tomans from each of the 200,000 defrauded people for registering their complaints.

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The files briefly mentioned in this article are a small corner of the systematic corruption in the Islamic Republic. Do you remember Vahid Mazloumin, also known as the “Coin Sultan”, who was executed in 2018? Judicial authorities believed that he and his partners, by collecting a large amount of coins from the market and reducing the supply, caused the price of coins to rise. However, after his execution, not only did the coin market not stabilize, but the price of coins and currency continued to rise day by day; the dollar reached 60,000 tomans and the main embezzlers are now sitting on the throne of power.