By Mohammad Sadat Khansari
The Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force (IRGC-QF), reported on Tuesday that the “financial manager of the oil ministry” was arrested while trying to leave the country with $25 million.
Based on this report, the suspect had “wired the money to a moneychanger’s account” and “intended to leave the country on Tuesday”.
=“The moneychanger was also arrested, and his account has been closed,” Tasnim added.
Elsewhere, the oil ministry’s Shana News Agency elusively reported that during financial accountability of a “second-layer contractor company of the Oil Ministry” it was clarified that “significant amounts of currency” was in the account of a moneychanger and any “probable fund misuse” was prevented with the interference of the judiciary and the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS).
Shana also denied the existence of the title “financial manager” in the Oil Ministry’s organization and called Tasnim’s report “false and fabricated by specific people.”
This is the second time in recent months that Intelligence Ministry agents enter cases of oil executives.
In recent months, members of the regime’s Majlis (parliament) with ties to the regime’s supreme leader reported that some of the “authorities” of the Oil Minister’s office used credit card readers to receive bribes from managers of oil and gas companies and transferred these funds to their personal accounts.
Abolfaz Abou Turabi, MP from Najaf Abad, said that the security agents found three credit card readers with billions of dollars’ worth of transactions, as well as some cash and gold in the Oil Minister’s office.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Intelligence rejected reports of finding gold in the Oil Minister’s office, as well as the transfer of 100 billion rials to personal accounts using credit card readers, and declared it would continue the investigation about the exact amount of money.
The MOIS also said that the fraud was done by a contract “employee” and the ministry has dealt with this person.
In the midst of conflicting reports from the Iranian regime’s various ministries, billions of dollars of national funds go missing each year in Iran under the mullahs’ corrupt rule.