Leaked Recording confirming Revolutionary Guards commanders’ involvement in massive financial corruption during Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s tenure as mayor of Tehran has caused uproar in Iran and overseas.
This week Radio Farda published a 50-minute audio recording of a 2018 meeting between ex-IRGC commander-in-chief Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, who held the post from 2007 to 2019, and Brigadier General Sadegh Zolghadr-Nia, the IRGC’s deputy commander for economic affairs.
In it, the pair discuss the recent, infamous Yas Holding Company corruption case and IRGC commanders’ attempts to help cover it up. Zolghadr-Nia says that Ghalibaf – a former IRGC commander himself – was trying to use his influence with the Guards to keep the case quiet and that Hossein Taeb, the head of the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization, was supporting him in doing so.
The Yas Holding Company case related to more than $3bn worth of funds said to have been “embezzled” from Tehran Municipality. The money was paid to this firm, which was owned by the IRGC’s Cooperatives Foundation, for massively over-priced construction projects agreed upon during Ghalibaf’s tenure. Several IRGC commanders sat on the board of Yas Holding at the time. But it was Isa Sharifi, Ghalibaf’s former deputy, who was ultimately sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the scam.
In the leaked audio recording, both men express their satisfaction that they were able to stop the repayment of eight trillion tomans (close to $2 billion) rightly owed by the IRGC to the municipality. “If you’d paid this money, what the hell would we do now?” says Jafari. “This is why Ghalibaf is unhappy with you.”
Zolghadr-Nia also alleges that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf tried to force him to sign a memorandum of understanding to settle the dispute. “Ghalibaf came up to me in front of a mosque near our homes and told me to sign it,” he says.