Iran’s Money Laundering Network In Iraq revealed

Iran's Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force unit has been tasked with smuggling money from Iraq to Iran, according to Iran International.

The Islamic Republic’s embassy in Iraq is also involved in the money laundering operations that aim to funnel the regime’s revenues from oil and gas exports to Iran. 

As per a repeatedly extended sanctions’ waiver by Washington, Tehran is only allowed to import medicine and some essential goods in exchange for its export to its neighboring country.

Iran International television revealed that Mohammad Tajan-Jari, the financial manager of the 400th unit of IRGC’s Quds Force, was in charge of transferring the funds to the unit’s account in a branch of Ansar Bank in the capital Tehran.  The bank had been founded by the IRGC in 2010 and was officially merged into the IRGC’s official Bank Sepah. 

The IRGC had established several banks and credit institutions to help it in its money laundering operations and circumvent US sanctions but after they served their purpose and their affiliations were disclosed, all of them, including Ansar Bank, Mehr Eghtesad Bank, Hekmat Iranian Bank, Ghavamin Bank and Kowsar Credit Institution, were merged into Bank Sepah from 2018 to 2020.

In Iraq, the network is apparently managed by an old Quds Force operative identified as Mahmoud Hasanizadeh, who oversees the job with the help of two Iraqi citizens. Tajan-Jari's executive officer in Iraq is Mostafa Pakbatan, an employee of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic and a member of the Quds Force, who receives the dollars from exchange offices in Iraq. 

He is not the only employee of the embassy involved in the money laundering network. The current ambassador, Mohammad-Kazem Al-e Sadegh, who was appointed to the post less than a year ago was also a commander of the Quds force and one of the close aides to former chief Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in January 2020 in Baghdad.

About a year ago, during the tenure of Iraj Masjedi as the ambassador of the Islamic Republic, Al-Arabiya published a document that showed more than 60 billion Iraqi dinars (about $40 million) from the assets of Iranian energy companies were deposited into the account of the Iranian embassy in the Trade Bank of Iraq, which was supposed to be used for the expenses of the embassy. However, it ended up in the hands of Quds force officers.

This financial network is bypassing the US sanction regimes at the cost of the Iraqi economy. An informed source in Baghdad told Iran International late in December that Washington has received reports that Iraq is still conducting trade with Iran using US dollars despite sanctions.