Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, Aug. 14, 2019 – In recent days, Iran's state-run media is reporting more government corruption cases. According to the state-run ISNA news agency, several managers of the Saipa vehicle manufacturing company were arrested and the company's CEO has been banned from leaving the country. Saipa is one of the largest vehicle manufacturers in Iran, and its shareholders include the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and other regime institutions.
"To the CEO of Saipa and Iran Khodro, you were given a 1,880,000-rial limit on presales. Why did you go ahead and presold 1.188 million? What happened to all this money? With whose permission did you invest in other countries in 2017?" asked a member of the regime's Majlis (parliament) in this regard.
In another government corruption case, Salar Aghakhani, the first suspect in a corruption case involving the Central Bank, managed to "escape."
In this regard, state-run media reported, "The flight of Salar Aghakhani, the main suspect of the former managers of the Central Bank, was confirmed. Aghakahni, whose case was referred to court along with those of [Ahmad] Araghchi and former Central Bank president [Valiollah] Seif, has fled."
Aghakhani was charged with being complicit in a financial corruption case with Araghchi that involved distributing cash with the latter, who is the former vice president of the Central Bank. His charges included, "Smuggling $159.8 million and 20.5 million euros, and paying $118,000 in bribes."
In the midst of infighting between different regime factions, more corruption cases were revealed, this time regarding officials in the regime's judiciary. Jahan-e Sanat, another state-run newspaper, revealed information about Akbar Tabari, the deputy of the regime’s former judiciary chief Sadegh Larijani. "These days, the people are worried about different corruption cases, the abundance of corrupt judges, and the deposition and arrest of Akbar Tabari," Jahan-e Sanat writes, adding that Tabari had served in different deputy positions under Larijani.
Hamdeli, a newspaper with ties to regime president Hassan Rouhani, described Tabari's situation as such: "The arrest of Akbar Tabari was first rejected, only to be later confirmed… The editor in chief of Mizan, which is closely tied to the judiciary and its former head, did not confirm the allegations, but it seems that [Tabari] had been engaged in corruption under the name of his influential uncle."
Hamdeli added, "In other shocking news, the name of the son of a senior judiciary official was mentioned in another corruption case."
