Iran caught fleecing its people to bankroll terrorists

WND TV, May 13, 2017 – The Iranian exile group that recently unveiled evidence of Iran violating the terms of the nuclear agreement is now detailing how the regime is allegedly fleecing its own people to fund the military and bankroll Hezbollah.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, or NCRI, exposed Iran’s nuclear ambitions some 15 years ago. Now the group is releasing “Iran: The Rise of the Revolutionary Guards’ Financial Empire.” An additional subhead reads “How the Supreme Leader and the IRGC Rob the People to Fund International Terror.”
The book maintains that despite appearances of an active private sector, the regime and its elite military wing, the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, have a stranglehold on economy. The regime touts an emphasis on privatization, but that means something very different in Iran.
“Back in 2005, the supreme leader basically brought this nice-looking plan called privatization, turning everything to the private sector,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI’s Washington office.
“In fact, that was really a restructuring of the Iranian economy to give the ownership of a wide range of industries and institutions to those either associated directly with the supreme leader or with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” Jafarzadeh explained.
He says there was nothing fair about this embrace of “privatization.”
“The government, based on the constitution, has the right to seize and confiscate property if that property is obtained through what they call illegitimate means. ‘Illegitimate means’ is something they can define any way they want to,” Jafarzadeh said.
In essence, most of the Iran economy is in the hands of just over a dozen government cronies.
“We’re talking about 14 major powerhouses that are controlling the entire economy. All of these 14 are either entirely controlled by the supreme leader or by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” said Jafarzadeh, who revealed that just one of these entities is sitting on about $90 billion, and together the 14 are rolling in hundreds of billions of dollars.