NCRI- On Tuesday, the state-run Fars news agency published a “Detailed report of the activities of the wealth and power mafia.” The report exposed parts of astronomical plunders of Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president of mullahs’ regime, and his family that were named as “the wealth and power mafia.”
The following is the part five of the report published by Fars News Agency, June 9, 2009:
This essay is an attempt to review the scope of infiltration by the Mafia of wealth and power in Iran.
Tehran City Hall; the monopoly of Power and Wealth Mafia
After coming to power of the "constructive government" and reaching to executive and financial posts of the power and wealth Mafia, with the selection of Gholamhossein Karbaschi as Tehran's Mayor, the influence of this band reached to the Greater Tehran and this band continued to misappropriate public funds more than before. In previous sections we referred to a small portion of this misappropriation of funds.
That includes:1- Using city budget to advance partisan and personal benefits
2- Changing Greater Tehran's plans for personal gains
In continuation of this process, the following points are worth noting.
A) Changing the route of Niavaran highway to gain partisan benefits
In 1992, study for the continuation of Niavaran highway was placed on city's agenda and on November 30, 1992 the consulting engineers of the technical unit of Tehran's city hall approved the continuation of Niavaran highway from Shahid Seyyed Kazem Mousavi Street towards Pasdaran Street.At the same time it becomes known that a property of 10,000 sq. meters in Pasdaran area (2nd Narenjestan) belonging to Mr. Karbaschi (under his wife's name, Kheir-o-nessa Asgarian), Abdullah Nouri (under his son's name Mohsen Nouri) and children of Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani (Mehdi, Mohsen and Fatemeh) is located in the above mentioned plan.
They became aware that with the existence of this plan, they can not do anything with this property. Therefore under the order of Karbaschi on August 26, 1993, the said plan was re-routed through a non-professional and tortuous road. Following that order, an order to severe the said property (without any cost) and to change the zoning to residential, was issued and the partner owners benefited immensely from that.
Among the partners only Mohsen Hashemi built a house there. Change of plan for Niavaran highway has equally made that area one of the most accident full area of Tehran.
B) With the expropriation of part of Chitgar park to build an equestrian club for Yasser Hashemi (Hashemi Rafsanjani's son) during Karbaschi's tenure as Tehran's Mayor, he used his influence in the city hall to name 45000 sq. m of the park was used as the Equestrian federation.Subsequently another 30,000 sq. m of the park was expropriated. This is while that no document was signed between the city and Yasser Hashemi.
Mr. Yasser Hashemi has used the property to train horses and create an equestrian club with pool, sauna and Jacuzzi for the horses.Smuggling goods and antiques
Yasser Hashemi is very active in smuggling underground antiques and cultural assets. One of his activities in this regard is smuggling cultural assets of the city of Ghouchan. Yasser Hashemi's trips to Ghouchan and his relationship with the US antiques' smuggler(Hassan Sabet Baktash) is no secret to anyone.
Besides Yasser Hashemi's influence in customs and ports, and his huge bribes in exporting and importing goods, he works in the area of smuggling goods too.
Yasser Hashemi, with the aid of his own proxies has bought and rented few cargo boats in Imam Khomeini port and uses them to transport goods.Monopoly of influence in the country's ports and customs by the wealth and power Mafia
One of the centers under the control of the wealth and power Mafia, is the customs and ports of Boushehr, Imam Khomeini, Chabahar and Astara. For example, besides the fact that Mr. Hashemi family's affairs in the customs are done expeditiously, evaluating personnel consider special discount for their goods and customs clearance is very fast for them.
This is while the customs is known to give hard time to ordinary people and sometimes they have to wait for months for smallest issues and have to pay huge fines.Monopoly of trade in pistachio
Export of pistachio in Iran is the monopoly of the wealth and power Mafia. A number of Iranian merchants outside the country have said that the world's major companies who work in the pistachio field can only trade through this Mafia in Iran and others are not permitted to enter this field. This trade is the monopoly of Mr. Hashemi's family.
Effort to bring on board a high volume magazine
Mr. Mehdi Hashemi (Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani's son) has done tremendous effort to bring on board the "Green Family" (Khanevadeh Sabz) magazine. This magazine has a circulation of 500,000 and Mr. Hormoz Shojaee Mehr is its publisher. It has major influence on families.
News suggests that after Mr. Mehdi Hashemi's failure to do that, he tried to exert pressure on Mr. Hormoz Shojaee Mehr.Surveys have concluded that the main characteristics of the Iranian youths are justice seeking, fighting injustice, principle bound, … With this in mind, do Iranian youths accept the rule of the wealth and power Mafia?
