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Exclusive: Iran’s rulers amass fortunes through sleaze

 
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cyrus
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:58 pm    Post subject: Exclusive: Iran’s rulers amass fortunes through sleaze Reply with quote



Exclusive: Iran’s rulers amass fortunes through sleaze
Fri. 03 Feb 2006
Iran Focus

Source URL: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5608

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 03 – Iran Focus has obtained exclusive information from a reliable source in Iran throwing light on sleaze at the senior echelons of officialdom in the Islamic Republic.

The source has provided Iran Focus with a list of senior officials of the clerical regime and the personal fortune each one has amassed. Most of these officials have risen from lower middle class backgrounds to fabulous wealth gathered through corruption and embezzlement.

At eighth place is Ali Jannati, son of powerful cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati and a senior official in Iran’s Interior Ministry. The Jannati family’s private wealth is estimated at two trillion Rials, the equivenlt of $220 million. Senior cleric Ahmad Jannati is the head of the powerful Guardians Council and a close advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At seventh place is Ayatollah Abolghassem Khazali, former member of the Guardians Council. The powerful council whose members are handpicked by the Supreme Leader is comprised of six clerics and six senior judges and has the power to veto any Majlis legislation. Khazali’s estimated wealth is 2.5 trillion Rials, the equivalent of $275 million, coming mostly from sea trading, paper imports, and book sales.

At sixth place is Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, Iran’s former Judiciary Chief and another member of the Guardians Council. The senior cleric’s estimated wealth stands at three trillion Rials, the equivalent of $330 million.

At fifth place is Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mohammad-Ali Taskhiri, who for years headed the Islamic Culture and Communications Organisation (ICCO). Since 1995, the ICCO has been active in exporting fundamentalism and propaganda directed against Iranian dissidents outside of Iran. Khamenei himself is in charge of the organisation’s policymaking council and its meetings are held at his residence. Adding up the lands in his name and his cash flow, Taskhiri’s personal wealth is above three trillion Rials, the equivalent of $330 million.

Number four in Iran’s rich list is Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, Speaker of the Assembly of Experts, the exclusively clerical body that designates the country’s Supreme Leader. In a country where many of the theocracy’s ruling elite are in-laws, Meshkini is father in law to Mohammad Reyshahri, the Islamic Republic’s first Minister of Intelligence and Security. Meshkini’s personal wealth, coming in from mostly sugar trade and the industrial-scale printers, is well above three trillion Rials, the equivalent of $330 million.

Well ahead at third place is the former Commandant of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Mohsen Rezai. Rezai, a close aide to former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has amassed a personal wealth of six trillion Rials, or $660 million. While at the top of the IRGC, Rezai was known by many titles ranging from Major General to “darsadgir General” (literally, the general that takes commissions).

Number two on the list of officials who have become notoriously rich is Ayatollah Vaez Tabasi, known widely as the Sultan of Khorassan. Vaez Tabasi and his children have amassed an estimated fortune of seven trillion Rials, or $770 million. Their income primarily comes from sugar trade and the sale of real estate in Iran’s central Qods province.

At the top slot comes, unsurprisingly to Iran observers, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose family rules over a vast financial and business empire. From the pistachio farms of his hometown Rafsanjan to huge oil trading companies, the ruling theocracy’s former president has used his power and influence to expand his wealth. Conservative estimates put his fortune at well beyond the 10 trillion Rial mark, the equivalent of $1.1 billion.

Most of the powerful cleric’s enormous wealth is vested in the hands of his sons and daughters, as well as other close relatives such as his brothers, nephews, and bother-in-laws, and son-in-laws. One of his villas was sold in 2004 for roughly 29 billion Rials. His brother, Mohammad Hashemi, the former chief of the state broadcasting corporation, owns the company Taha, which imports industrial-scale printers.

The image of “rich ayatollahs driving around in bullet-proof Mercedes” has become the butt of many jokes and the cause of much resentment in a country where, according to World Bank figures, the per capital income has fallen to a fifth of its 1970s value. Despite Iran’s huge export revenues and unexpected surpluses from the giant oil market jumps in recent months and years, the country’s budget is constantly in a state of flux showing no signs that it will sustain any time soon, inflation is at 16 percent and rising, and the economic growth rate is projected to fall throughout 2006.


Last edited by cyrus on Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:53 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Let's keep this list up to date, and get the name of all of these Akhoondzadeh, and other cockroaches, and their Hamas, Hezbollah relatives, because when we get Iran back, they won't need all that money in Jail. Any country that wants to deal with Iran, should cooperate in freezing their assets and transfering them to the new elected government of Iran.....
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Omidvaur



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:19 pm    Post subject: Khamenai Reply with quote

Where is Khamenei on this list?
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AmirN



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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 2:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.eehum.com/music/CarryYourCross.html


This is an older video, but it still applies.
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I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

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AmirN



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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 3:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
At the top slot comes, unsurprisingly to Iran observers, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose family rules over a vast financial and business empire. From the pistachio farms of his hometown Rafsanjan to huge oil trading companies, the ruling theocracy’s former president has used his power and influence to expand his wealth. Conservative estimates put his fortune at well beyond the 10 trillion Rial mark, the equivalent of $1.1 billion.




The $1.1 billion estimate is very conservative indeed. His international real estate holdings are at least twice that figure alone. His family owns big chunks of Canada as well as other places.

I also find it humorous that a Rafsanjani recently purchased a Casino Resort in Las Vegas: “sin city.” Because gambling and serving alcohol aren’t un-islamic. I think Rafsanjani would pimp out Mohammad himself for the right price....but he would call it a "sigheh," and still keep it islamic.

When one of my relatives met Rafsanjani prior to the revolution, he was driving around an old beat up car with a big dent in it. When asked why he didn’t fix the dent, Rafsanjani's reply was "because I can't afford it."

He has done quite well for himself since the revolution. I need to talk to his financial advisor, maybe he’ll have a few good stock tips for me as well.

I can’t imagine any other way he could have built this empire other than with hard work, dedication, and sound investment strategy.
_________________
I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

Naqshe Rostam
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2006 12:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I also find it humorous that a Rafsanjani recently purchased a Casino Resort in Las Vegas: “sin city.”


Which one? Knowing how Ras the repugnant opperates, it's probably a front of a front of a front org....but hey, US Treasury and FBI would be mighty glad to look into it....so do tell, curious minds want to know....
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PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2011 7:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Khamenei places his son in control of Iran’s oil:


http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/097614.html

Iran Channel -- It’s a classic case of an isolated elite in a dying regime, fighting over the spoils of the nation’s wealth.

Iran’s petrodollars are now under the direct personal control of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his son, and his most trusted inner circle. The Khamenei family has taken control of every aspect of Iran’s oil and gas industry, keeping all contracts, agreements and financial transactions away from parliament and the rest of the government.

The corruption is spectacular. Nobody – not the president, the parliament, the judiciary, or even the highest clerics outside Khamenei’s inner circle – will have any knowledge of or say in what happens to Iran’s petrodollars. Paradoxically, the setup makes it easier for Western countries to impose comprehensive oil sanctions.

Follow the money

IranChannel reported on March 18 that the mullahs in parliament found $11 billion missing from the state-controlled petrodollar fund in Iran’s foreign exchange account. On April 29, Asriran.com reported that a member of parliament declared that not even a dollar was left in that account. Reviewing the current budget, the head of the parliamentary agricultural committee proposed $2 billion from the foreign reserve account to fund water projects, to whom the head of the joint (talfigh) committee replied that nothing, not even a dollar, remained.

Ahmadinejad had stated last October that “others estimate our foreign reserves at $100 billion, but of course it is much more than that,” a sum that Finance and Economy Minister Shamsedin Hosseini reaffirmed on April 17, 2011. Nearly all of these funds are derived from oil exports.

So where did $100 billion disappear to in two short weeks?

It has something to do with a new organization created by the Khamenei team called Petro Nahad. A reformist information service received internal documents about Petro Nahad, and brings us this story.

Khamenei family nepotism

On March 10, 2011, Khamenei decreed that all oil field projects, contracts and oil purchase agreements must be made exclusively by Petro Nahad. All existing companies and organizations responsible for such deals – Petro Sina Arya, Petro Pars, National Iranian Drilling Company (a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company), and the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization (IDRO) – would henceforth operate under Petro Nahad’s direct control.

All contracts relating to gas and oil would now be awarded solely by Petro Nahad. All revenues would be deposited exclusively into an account belonging to Petro Nahad.

Khamenei further directed that all of Petro Nahad’s financial and administrative affairs be assigned to a three-man board of directors, two of whom are members of his family. Those members are: Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s son; Gholamali Haddad Adel, a member of the regime’s Expediency Council who happens to be Mojtaba Khamenei’s father-in-law; and Majid Hedayatzadeh.

Fazel Larijani, a member of the famous family allied with the Supreme Leader and former diplomat in Ottawa, and Hojatollah Ghanimi Fard, a deputy oil minister since 1997 in charge of marketing for crude oil and NIOC’s overseas divisions, were appointed as international affairs directors for Petro Nahad.

Contracts being cut with China, Russia and Malaysia

Presently, Petro Nahad is negotiating with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Gazprom of Russia, and Petronas of Malaysia.

Any Petro Nahad contract is considered confidential, with strict prohibitions against their disclosure. Even though Petro Nahad is a government entity, the contracts are not available to parliament’s budget committee.

Revolutionary Guards commander gets some of the spoils

Fazel Larijani recently brought Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari in on Petro Nahad deal with the United Arab Emirates. The deal reportedly would sell the UAE oil products below market price in exchange for $89 billion in cash and $89 billion in imported consumer goods from Dubai over a 23-year period.

Opportunity for the opposition

The upside to this opaque, corrupt, nepotistic control of Iran’s oil wealth is that the scheme makes it easier for Western democracies to impose sanctions on the regime’s oil sector. All they have to do is embargo Petro Nahad and its subsidiaries.
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PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2011 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/097690.html

Wed May 4, 2011

Leaked Iranian intelligence report reveals fratricide

A leaked classified report by Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi reveals intense fratricide at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic, as well as staggering levels of official corruption.

The report, made public by a reformist dissident news organization inside Iran, has received little publicity in the outside world.

The reformist news group, GreenCorrespondents.com, provides a full context and commentary in Persian about the leaked document. The commentary is consistent with the Green Movement’s line that the Islamic Republic should be preserved but reformed. Here are the main facts in the report, based on the leaked intelligence document, as IranChannel has translated from the original Persian language:

1. President Ahmadinejad’s allies in the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have spied on the clergy and mobilized against them. The IRGC intelligence unit, headed by Hojatoleslam Taeb, has put significant pressure on clergy critical of Ahmadinejad (and presumably supportive of Supreme Leader Khamenei) by planting listening devices in their classrooms and offices, and by employing coercive measures to pressure them to approve some of Ahmadinejad’s policies. IRGC intelligence harassment of clerics continued to the point that two clerics threatened retaliatory action. In response, IRGC guards were deployed in large numbers in the city of Qom, site of Iran’s principal seminaries, to suppress further anti-Ahmadinejad activity.

2. Supreme Leader Khamenei’s policies of oil nepotism have outraged Ahmadinejad. The Supreme Leader’s sudden decision to place oil revenues under the control of a three-man board headed by his son, Mojtaba, outraged Ahmadinejad, who has railed against official high-level corruption. In his first cabinet meeting following the Supreme Leader’s decision, Ahmadinejad used colorful language to slam Mojtaba Khamenei and his entourage, calling the move offensive.

3. Ahmadinejad is trying to purge the Intelligence Ministry. The president gave Intelligence Minister Moslehi a list of 45 senior Intelligence Ministry officers, requesting their dismissal or early retirement. Ahmadinejad said that the IRGC’s intelligence unit had determined that the 45 had not shown their loyalty to the presidential administration (and by inference, were loyal to the clerics led by Khamenei), and said they must be replaced by individuals to be recommended by the office of the presidency. In his report, Moslehi states that Ahmadinejad’s list of 45 top officers was a big blow to his ministry.

4. IRGC is suspected of bugging Intelligence Ministry offices for Ahmadinejad. Apparently Moslehi had to hire new officers from the IRGC intelligence unit. Moslehi reports that after the IRGC men were transferred to the Intelligence Ministry, a number of listening devices were discovered in sensitive areas of the ministry and were illegally recording information. Moslehi’s report specifies that the listening devices had been planted in the leadership compound (details not specified), with Ahmadinejad’s knowledge but unbeknown to the Ministry of Intelligence.

5. Ahmadinejad intelligence faction secretly met with American officers. Last February, according to Moslehi’s report, a group of intelligence officers close to Ahmadinejad traveled to Dubai under the guise of a trade council and met with two American political and military officials.

6. Supreme Leader’s oil contracts seen as unjustified. Moslehi’s report cites a confidential letter to parliament and an official statement to the Ministry of Intelligence from the Ministry of Industries, in which the latter announced that it could not justify the opaque oil contracts under the Khamenei family scheme between Iran and China and Iran and Malaysia. The Ministry of Industries says it it completely uninformed about the contracts’ provisions.

7. Oil Ministry reports massive diversions of oil and revenue and billions in IRGC corruption. In February 2011, the Oil Ministry sent the parliamentary Energy Committee a confidential report, stating that it had no information about the amount of oil being exported through the 10th pipeline. The Oil Ministry said it could not accept responsibility for that pipeline because the petroduct was not under its control. Export revenues from that pipeline, according to the Oil Ministry, were not being returned to Iran. Underwater pipelines of Kish have been constructed jointly by the IRGC and the Chinese, resulting in more than $3 billion annually in diverted funds.The Ministry has no knowledge of where or how that $3 billion in revenue is received and deposited. The Oil Ministry also reported the embezzlement of $580 million that was traced to two personal accounts in Malaysia, and $2.6 billion in embezzled funds traced to two accounts in Shanghai that belong to senior IRGC commanders.8. IRGC won’t report on its own oil construction revenues. The Oil Minister formally complained about the failure of Rahim Safavi, an IRGC commander, to provide any reports of the activities of Khatam-al-anbia, the IRGC construction division that has been awarded some of the largest oil contracts in Iran.

9. Ahmadinejad steered secret deals to IRGC. Parliamentary Energy Committee Chairman Hamid Katouzian complained in a confidential legislative session about the non-transparency of all enterprises awarded to the IRGC by Ahmadinejad’s direct orders. The “foreign exchange cost” alone of one such project, according to the report, was stated at $6.7 billion.

10. IRGC commanders interfere in oil contracts. Intelligence Minister Moslehi reports about unjustified interference by IRGC commanders in all oil contracts. In some instances, IRGC commanders order certain contracts to be broken and re-signed with other parties.

11. Secret IRGC contracts with China are illegal. Moslehi reports that the IRGC has drawn up new contracts with Chinese partners, some of which were without legal authorization and were kept from parliament. These questionable or unauthorized contracts are worth an estimated $58 billion, at least $14 billion of which has not been returned to Iran as required.

12. Full-scale feud between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei’s son. Intelligence Minister Moslehi reports that a tension between Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is escalating to a full-scale feud.

News of Moslehi’s report adds context to Khamenei’s repeated warnings that regime leaders keep their allegations of corruption secret from the public.

Iran Channel
**********************
It is obvious the oil revenue is going to the pockets of Khamanie and IRGC commanders. Most likely the rest allocated to terrorism, helping Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, and others.
I hope the infighting of these mafia snakes causes their demise.
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