Scandal in the IRGC family

In Iran, for the second day, a serious corruption scandal has been raging regarding the top officials of the IRGC and the Islamic Republic.

I believe its details will be of interest to Russian politicians interacting with Iran, as it shows the depth and seriousness of the conflict within Iranian political groups and their split.

The bottom line is this: a 50-minute audio recording of a three-year-old conversation between the then commander of the IRGC, Mohammed Ali (Aziz) Jafari, and his deputy for economic affairs, Sadegh Zolhadr, was published.

The publication of this secret talk on the impact on Iranian society is similar to the consequences of the military operation "Desert Storm".

Imagine: the generals of the IRGC are discussing corruption in the upper echelons of the IRGC, and the protagonists of the billions of embezzlement are still in the cage of the leadership of the republic.

So, the main character of the scandal discussed in the audio recording is the current speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and the corruption deal that the then head of the IRGC Jafari and his deputy are talking about took place during Ghalibaf's tenure as mayor of Tehran (he was them from 2005 to 2017).

Others include former Quds chief Qasem Soleimani, IRGC deputy coordinator Jamaluddin Aberumand and IRGC intelligence chief Hossein Tayeb.

Above - only stars and rahbar.

All of those mentioned are somehow tied to concealing the theft of 80 billion rials (about $3 billion at that time).

In the conversation - and in this corrupt case - is Yas Holding, aka Yas Economic Development, the main unit of the IRGC Cooperative Fund, working in the field of housing construction and subcontracting.

Such holdings, to be clear, receive budget financing and the largest government orders, that is, a huge tidbit of billions of public money.

In the recording of the conversation, Zolhadr reports to the then head of the IRGC about the cover-up of the theft that happened with the participation of the municipality of Tehran and the company controlled by the IRGC, the same Yas Holding.

The purpose of the created holding was formulated by Ayatollah Khamenei: to earn money in order to support the Quds Force.

More precisely, 90% of the profits and financial resources were to go to finance the Qods, and the remaining 10% would remain in the IRGC for "general needs".

On the recording, Zolkhadr informs the commander of the IRGC Jafari that in order to hide the traces of the theft, Ghalibaf met him near the mosque and demanded to sign a “memorandum”, that is, a fake contract between the IRGC and the municipality: “I told him (Ghalibaf. -

) that this would be a crime.

It will hurt me, it will hurt Jafari.

I won't sign it."

Another source mentions that IRGC intelligence chief Tayeb has close ties to Mojtaba Khamenei and they both support Ghalibaf on this issue.

Both - both the commander of the IRGC and his deputy - spend 50 minutes thinking about what they should do with all this investigation and its results.

For such a high patronage gives Taieb, who has already been accused of corruption in the past, invulnerability.

The same kind that Mr. Ghalibaf receives from this friendship.

Allegedly, Tayeb served together with Mojtaba Khamenei during the Iran-Iraq war, and therefore this friendly bond is very strong.

But back to the audio recording.

Jafari then tells Zolhadr that Soleimani is aware of the corruption preventing funds from flowing into his own Quds Force.

That is, before the start of the investigation and initiation of a criminal case, Soleimani allegedly did not know why several billion dollars had not reached the Quds Force, lost along the way.

Jafari talks about this with a fair amount of sarcasm: "Qassem Soleimani just now realized what was happening with Yas!"

Qasem Soleimani himself appears in the audio file more than once.

Firstly, his wife was involved in a corruption scandal (apparently, registering property and assets for a wife is not only traditional Russian insurance).

Secondly, according to Zolkhadr, Soleimani, like Ghalibaf, was very dissatisfied with the scandal that had arisen and even “went to talk with the supreme leader” about this.

• Hassan Rouhani meets his wife Qasem Soleimani

• Gettyimages.ru

• © Iranian Presidency / Handout/Anadolu Agency

I was not at this meeting, but, knowing the local public and its lexical arsenal, I can assume that Suleimani appealed in a conversation with the rahbar to the fact that “enemies of Islam, the West and Zionists” want public quarrels and discredit of the IRGC, so there is no need to go about them.

Judging by the fact that only Ghalibaf's deputy was in the dock, and Ghalibaf himself rose up the vertical of his career, the "plans of the Zionists" who wanted to discredit the IRGC and stole billions of dollars with their hands did not succeed.

But, for example, the analyst and journalist Reza Golpur, who was investigating the intelligence of the IRGC, was accused by Mr. Taieb of “cooperating with hostile states” - a charge similar to mine, although before my arrest in Tehran I did not write any critical articles about the Islamic Republic, and imprisoned for 28 years.

But I digress.

A volley from the "opposition" media was heard exactly on the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

Symbolically: to show the dirty underwear of the "revolutionaries" and "the best people in the city."

Radio Farda (Persian service of Radio Liberty*), followed by BBC Persian - in a word, "pillars of freedom" with a huge Persian-speaking audience of millions, which are read and watched/listened if not by every second, then by every third Iranian, regardless from publicly declared political views - one after another they publish a record of a secret meeting of the leadership of the IRGC.

For some reason, the Russian embassy in Tehran in its Telegram channel called these media “anti-Iranian” (for a different reason, but also predictable).

Not at all.

These media support the Iranian reformers, that is, the current political establishment of the Islamic Republic, and have relations with the Iranian intelligence services, mainly with the Ministry of Intelligence (but in this case, we see that the IRGC also used this channel).

The authenticity of the file, published by the Persian service of RFE/RL, was confirmed by the Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the IRGC.

We live in interesting times, friends!

Ghalibaf's media adviser Mohammad-Saeed Ahadian, on his Twitter, claims that the tape was leaked by Ghalibaf's enemies (as if without him it is not clear), and runs into Saeed Jalili and hardliners close to Edalatkhah ("Seekers of Justice").

In 2018, when, under pressure from Rouhani and the Intelligence Ministry, the supreme leader ordered an investigation into suspected corruption scandals, the position of Ghalibaf, the three-term mayor of Tehran in a row, was greatly shaken.

According to investigators, it was he who led large-scale corruption schemes.

Khamenei ordered Mohammad Bagheri, head of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, to oversee the progress of the investigation.

The result of the investigation was announced in 2018: the IRGC Cooperative Fund owes the Tehran municipality trillions of rials.

But Ghalibaf managed to hush up the scandal (why is already clear).

“At the moment, five suspects have been detained, including the deputy of Ghalibaf Sharifi,” the head of the Tehran City Council, Mohsen Hashemi (son of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani), commented on the situation to the press in 2018.

— Several companies associated with the IRGC Cooperative Fund owe the municipality huge sums.

Yas Holding, for example, owes nearly 45 trillion riyals (roughly $11 billion).”

We will notice that “on the way” the amount of embezzlement was adjusted downward - from $11 billion to $3 billion - and changed like that, in the rhythm of a waltz.

Also, as follows from the audio recording, Jafari says that the IRGC Cooperative Fund and Ghalibaf (the IRGC General himself, at that time the chairman of the council of the IRGC Cooperative Fund) promised to return the funds to the treasury, but in the end "sabotaged this issue."

A bunch of Tayeb, Masood Mehrdadi (IRGC Cooperative Fund) and Mahmoud Seif (head of Mobin Diamond Trading Company, a subsidiary of the same IRGC Cooperative Fund) often appears in the triangle of anti-corruption investigations and becomes the object of criticism of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

At the same time, Ahmadinejad is himself a representative of the IRGC, only of another influential group, as well as the president of two cadences, who ended, however, almost with a war with Khamenei.

The date of the conversation between the commander of the IRGC Jafari is 2018.

It's been an interesting year.

At the very top, the most brutal showdowns in the struggle for power had already begun, and it was a very complex oriental ornamental ball, not at all so unambiguous like “reformers against conservatives” or “IRGC against Rouhani”.

The split took place within the IRGC itself.

It was during this period (2018-2019) that I managed to end up in Iran and be drawn into the funnel of these wars.

Results

In 2018, the Yas holding, which had existed for more than two years, was dissolved.

In April 2019, Jafari himself was removed from his post.

Considering whose names, besides Ghalibaf and his subordinates, appeared in the scandal and the investigation, including those initiated by him, this is not surprising.

In January 2020, the head of the Quds Force Soleimani disappeared from the stage of the Iranian political theater, which, however, did not allow him to lose to the political group - and moreover, made him not a defendant in murky corruption cases, but "a martyr and a symbol of Iran-Iraq friendship who fell from the Trump rocket.

At the initiative of President Raisi, only his huge portrait hung next to the portrait of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, at the celebration of the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

The neighborhood was interesting.

It sounds blasphemous, but the heroic death played into the hands of General Soleimani.

• Speech by Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi

But not everyone was treated nicely.

One of the five members of the same commission to investigate corruption in the IRGC was Said Mohammad, a young Ksirov technocrat born in 1968, holder of a doctorate in civil engineering, former commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Camp - the most powerful financial institution of the IRGC with multi-billion dollars turnover and at least 40 thousand employees.

All the most important infrastructure projects of the country in the field of construction, petrochemistry and other things are concentrated in this institution.

Revenge on him was also sophisticated: the supreme leader called him the strike force of the "resistance economy", a young fiery revolutionary who needs to give way, in a word, praised him so that Said Mohammad decided to run for president in 2021 and for this he resigned from the post of Khatam al- Anbiya.

• Said Mohammad

• Gettyimages.ru

• © Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency

However, the Guardian Council disqualified the shocked "young Hezbollah", as the Rahbar called him, and removed him from the elections.

Then Mohammad joined Raisi's team and became one of the main persons leading his election campaign in the regions.

Everyone wondered what post the young Ksirovite would get in the new government in gratitude for his patience and ability to remain silent and thank the party for everything.

Answer: none.

Said Mohammad was cunningly lured from the post of head of the country's most important holding company, and then they were not allowed to participate in the elections and were not given a single ministerial portfolio in the hope that he would publicly express dissatisfaction and then he could be completely devoured.

But he was wisely silent, and therefore, after many months, he was given the department for free economic zones.

In today's released audio file, Jafari's chief of staff asks Zolhadr not to record his performances, saying that "our power will not reach them, but then they will come for us."

Like looking into the water.

It should be emphasized that at the time of the investigation, Jafari was a Ksirov heavyweight, he led the Guard Corps from September 1, 2007, that is, more than 11 years.

Influential, experienced, gaining political weight.

And a real hardliner - participated in the violent suppression of the 1999 student uprisings and was one of 24 IRGC officers who wrote a letter to the then liberal president Mohammad Khattami about why the IRGC and the army should extinguish the uprising, while the president does nothing and lets it flare up, and why, they say, such a president is needed if he cannot cope.

Qasem Soleimani, Ismail Gaani (who led the Quds Force after Soleimani), Mohammad Bagheri, the current Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, signed this letter and were among its initiators, and the head of the IRGC, Salami, for example, did not sign it.

A detail, but an interesting one, showing that Salami did not differ in bloodthirstiness in the Ksirov system.

Such an IRGC commander is convenient in the current realities.

Therefore, on April 21, 2019, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dismissed Jafari and appointed Hossein Salami, head of the IRGC Aerospace Forces, in his place.

But back to the audio file leak scandal.

More precisely, let's finish with him.

What is of interest to us in all these intricacies of Iranian politics and corruption scandals?

1. Previously, the struggle for power was mainly under the carpet, from where the already dead bulldogs were carried out.

The conflict between the influential groups of the IRGC, brought into the public space right now, suggests that a serious fight for power and for becoming the Rahbar's successor has been outlined inside the country's most influential institution.

And that the characters announced as successors and the peaceful transfer of power are not the final scenario.

2. The contours of the future were predictable a year and a half ago.

It is enough to watch this video (link at the bottom of the post) to see who brought whom to power.

All the characters are presented to your attention, and even Mr. Taieb gets into the frame, trying to cover his face with his hand.

3. It seems that Russia has staked on Mr. Raisi as the future successor of the supreme leader, as evidenced by the solemnity and unprecedentedness of his reception in Moscow.

Speaker Ghalibaf and the current head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry flew to Moscow to prepare the ground for his visit in February 2021.

Moscow's stake on Raisi caused a flurry of hatred from several Iranian political flanks at once - both from the pro-British Rukhanist reformers and from another group of the IRGC, which will now rely on anti-Russian rhetoric and rapprochement with the United States.

Perhaps we should pursue a more cautious and multi-vector policy in the Iranian direction.

4. Despite the fact that the name of Soleimani was mentioned in the scandal, it is known that the front against Ghalibaf and his group is headed by Ahmadinejad, Said Jalali (very loyal to the former commander of the Quds Forces), ex-IRGC commander Jafari and many, many more influential security officials, the army team and the Ksirovites, whose influence should not be underestimated.

5. The most mysterious figure in the Iranian power alignment remains Ibrahim Raisi.

He is not just between the hammer of the IRGC and the anvil of the Shiite clergy, but also in the most complex combination of claims to the rahbarism of Mojtaba Khamenei (then what role is in store for him?) And crossfire between different groups of the IRGC, which are preparing for the great hour of X.

This, so to speak, is for us to "think about."

* Mass media recognized as a foreign agent by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 05.12.2017.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.