IRGC funds itself through buying inflated foreign currencies - report
IRGC funds itself through buying inflated foreign currencies – report
An exclusive investigation by Iran International TV funds, an independent Persian broadcast network, examined the mechanism through which Iran succeeds in using a loophole in the banking system to redirect money to terrorism.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran’s military strongarm, manipulates the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) which has a system in place for businesses to trade foreign currencies at lower rates.
The IRGC effectively impersonates official money-lenders to buy “tens of millions of dollars and euros” from exporters at the black-market rate of upwards of 260,000 rials, or the equivalent of $6.18, a senior manager at the Iranian banking system told Iran International TV on the condition of anonymity. This operation is called Nima. Since March, $15 billion worth of foreign currencies have been inflated and sold by the Nima system, Abdolnaser Hemmati, CBI’s governor, said.CBI is apparently aware of the IRGC’s operations, specifically that the money is diverted to the IRGC’s Quds Force, which answers to Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. Back in May, Adel Azam, chairman of Iran’s Court of accounts, accused the Iranian government of corruption in the form of mismanaging state funds. His annual budget report, titled “Summary of Budget Fraud in 1397 (2018),” couldn’t directly accuse Khamenei or the IRGC of anything. He had to do implicitly what this investigation definitively. The official currency rate is 42,000 rials — the equivalent of $1. That’s more than five times the rate. The money should be used to import necessary, day-to-day products. Nearly a month ago, the IDF announced that an explosives-ridden terrorist cell in the Golan Heights is actually being operated by the Quds Force, which backs unofficial military groups throughout the Middle East, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
