Key IRGC intelligence figure in Iran’s oil sales identified: Who is Mostafa Ahadi?

Over the past two months, Iran International has published three separate reports naming the trustees — oil brokers trusted by the Islamic Republic to sell Iran’s sanctioned oil — who have failed to return billions of dollars in oil proceeds to the country.

On September 28, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei criticized delays in handling cases involving trustees with outstanding debts and called for swift rulings. Iran International has obtained a confidential Supreme National Security Council document in which the council’s deputy for economic affairs confirms that oversight bodies alter the trustees’ debt figures according to their own interests, inflating some debts and understating others.

The council’s deputy has asked the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC Intelligence Organization to report on the missing funds. The letter makes it easier for IRGC Intelligence, the principal organization implicated in the corruption surrounding oil sales, to gain access to the case.

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Trustees’ case returns to IRGC Intelligence

Two informed sources in the Oil Ministry and an oversight body told Iran International that the Supreme Audit Court and the General Inspection Organization are currently pursuing the trustees’ cases. But through the maneuvering of a senior security official and an order from the Supreme National Security Council, the case has effectively returned to the IRGC Intelligence Organization.

That senior security official, whose photograph Iran International is publishing for the first time, is Mostafa Ahadi. He is now deputy head of Unit 600 of the IRGC Intelligence Organization, having previously served as its deputy for economic affairs. Through his positions in IRGC Intelligence and the Supreme National Security Council over the past decade, Ahadi has had a firm grip on Iran’s oil sales.

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Several months ago, Brigadier General Mehdi Sayyari appointed Ahadi deputy head of Unit 600. Sayyari served for years as deputy head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization and became acting head of one of the country’s most important security organizations following the killing of Majid Khademi.

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In the late 2010s, when responsibility for selling oil under sanctions was assigned to the Supreme National Security Council, Ahadi joined the council as deputy for economic affairs. Without his security background becoming known to international organizations, he attended two BRICS summits, in Russia and Brazil.

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His involvement in Iran’s oil trade is so extensive that he even accompanies Oil Ministry officials on visits to oil terminals on Kharg Island.

While serving on the Supreme National Security Council, Ahadi sent his former deputy, Mohammad Javad Bavand, to the council’s cover committee as a representative of IRGC Intelligence, ostensibly to oversee sanctioned oil sales. His principal responsibility, however, was to secure profits from corruption in the oil trade for the IRGC Intelligence network.

Bavand, who served as a special assistant to the oil minister for oil sales during Ebrahim Raisi’s administration, returned to the role about four months ago. According to a General Inspection Organization document first published by Iran International, he assigned the sale of a large 86-million-barrel oil consignment to four trustees with outstanding debts, including Mohammad Hadi Momenin.

Bavand’s close ties to Mohammad Hadi Momenin

Iran International has obtained exclusive information indicating that the relationship between the two extends well beyond this corruption case.

A General Inspection Organization document published by Iran International revealed that the sale of 86 million barrels of Iran’s oil had been assigned to four trustees with outstanding debts.

Six years ago, Mohammad Hadi Momenin was arrested on suspicion of disrupting the foreign exchange system. He had received hundreds of millions of dollars in preferential foreign currency to import machinery for the paper industry and had failed to return the funds. At the time, Mohammad Javad Bavand used his influence to have the case closed. Momenin, who was a shareholder in Mahan Industries and Mines Development Holding, then appointed Bavand to a management position as his representative. Gardeshgari Bank is the holding company’s principal shareholder.

On Monday, September 28, Hadi Ghavami, the parliamentary representative for Esfarayen, told a plenary session: “The trustees who took oil out of the country also stole $300 million, equivalent to 69 trillion tomans, from Gardeshgari Bank, and under these circumstances, the Central Bank has given them a credit line with a 45 percent penalty.”

In June 2020, Momenin was arrested again on allegations of financial corruption and disrupting the foreign exchange system, but his case was once more closed with Bavand’s help. An investigator’s report quoted Momenin as saying that he had used his employees to register numerous shell companies in China, Taiwan, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. The companies existed for between three and 14 months.

Another part of the case revealed that Momenin’s holding company had received large loans from Mellat Bank, Refah Bank, Karafarin Bank, Bank of Industry and Mine, Saman Bank and Middle East Bank, yet none of the banks had filed a complaint against him.

In July, the Central Bank published a list of major bank debtors showing that Mohammad Hadi Momenin owed Karafarin Bank 743 billion tomans.

Two informed sources in the Oil Ministry and an oversight body told Iran International that Ahmad Baharvandi, who became Karafarin Bank’s chief executive five years ago, was in fact an associate of Bavand within IRGC Intelligence. Both men studied at Imam Sadiq University. Mostafa Ahadi also studied there and was a member of the university’s student Basij organization.

At Bavand’s request, Baharvandi did not pursue Momenin’s 743-billion-toman debt. In turn, Momenin took Bavand on a trip to China.

Mohammad Hadi Momenin was a member of the Ministry of Intelligence’s oil sales corruption network known as Shayan, which failed to return $2 billion in oil proceeds.

Secret IRGC meeting held to counter reporting on trustee corruption

After Bavand returned to the Oil Ministry, Momenin became his trusted trustee for oil sales despite a warning from the General Inspection Organization. Over the past month, following the publication of investigative reports, Momenin and Bavand have found themselves back in the headlines against their wishes.

Mostafa Ahadi, the godfather of the IRGC Intelligence corruption network, used his new position to address the problem. Two informed sources in the Oil Ministry and an oversight body told Iran International that a secret meeting was held two weeks ago at the IRGC’s media headquarters. Those present included Abdullah Zeighami, also known as Brigadier General Moshfegh, Bavand and Ahadi.

The meeting’s objective was to prevent media coverage of trustee corruption. One result was the removal of reports about the scandal from Mehr News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Propagation Organization, and Hamshahri, a newspaper owned by Tehran Municipality.

At the same time, Ahadi used the Supreme National Security Council to return responsibility for the trustees’ cases to IRGC Intelligence so that the security organization’s cycle of profits from oil sales would continue.

Pedaran, born on June 26, 1985, was married and had two children, aged 15 and 11. He was arrested in July 2025 and executed on September 19 at Isfahan Central Prison, also known as Dastgerd Prison.

One informed source told Iran International that plainclothes agents raided Pedaran’s home when he was arrested and seized his personal and work belongings, along with electronic devices belonging to him and members of his family.

The source said Pedaran was then held for months in solitary confinement and in detention facilities run by security agencies, where he faced severe physical and psychological pressure.

Prolonged detention in dark conditions and deprivation of sunlight caused injuries and sores on his toes, the source said. Interrogators also pressured and threatened Pedaran and his wife to force him to make statements against himself, according to the source.

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Iran Human Rights previously reported that Pedaran spent four months at the Isfahan Intelligence Department’s detention center before being transferred to an intelligence detention facility in Tehran. He was returned to Isfahan a month later.

Work in information technology

Information obtained by Iran International shows that before his arrest, Pedaran worked in information technology at a company called Gostareh Tarahan Naghsh Almas.

His work included designing and setting up USSD codes and developing digital businesses.

Iran’s judiciary said after his execution that Pedaran had been sentenced to death for “espionage and intelligence cooperation in favor of Israel” and that the sentence was carried out after being upheld by the Supreme Court.

The judiciary accused him of providing Mossad with information about military and missile facilities in Isfahan province.

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An informed source rejected the judiciary’s account that Pedaran had access to military or missile information, telling Iran International that his professional work was commercial and focused on information technology and digital services.

Iranian authorities have executed dozens of people in recent months on charges including involvement in the January uprising and espionage.

Trial process

A source familiar with Pedaran’s case told Iran International that Judge Mohammadreza Tavakoli of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court issued the death sentence and that defense submissions filed by the family’s lawyer were not considered.

The family had appointed lawyers at different stages of the case, the source said.

According to the source, one of the lawyers told the family on the night before the execution that no notice confirming the final approval of the sentence or setting an execution date had appeared in the judiciary’s Sana electronic system.

Pedaran’s family therefore did not know when he would be executed until the sentence was carried out, the source said.

Security agencies had also pressured Pedaran’s wife from the time of his arrest not to publicize the case and had told the family that he might receive a pardon, according to the source.

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Body handed over after two days

The source said Pedaran’s family faced obstacles when trying to recover his body after the execution.

His body was handed over to the family late in the day after about two days of attempts to obtain it, the source said.

Pedaran was buried under security restrictions at Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery in Isfahan, and his family was not allowed to hold a public mourning ceremony, according to information obtained by Iran International.

Relatives described Pedaran as calm, disciplined, kind and hopeful about life. They said he remained hopeful until his final family visit before the execution.

Mizan, the judiciary-affiliated news agency, did not provide details about when Pedaran was arrested, his access to legal counsel or the conditions of his detention in its report on his execution.

After his death, state media also broadcast excerpts of what authorities described as Pedaran’s “confessions.”

“Despite all these surgeries, I am still confined to my home,” the protester, whose identity and place of residence are being withheld for security reasons, told Iran International. “I am married, and during this time we have faced many problems paying for my treatment.”

His family eventually sold their car to help cover his medical bills, the protester said. Doctors have told him that regaining the ability to walk could take at least another year.

The account reflects the prolonged physical and financial consequences facing some people wounded during the protests, with Iran International receiving multiple accounts of injured demonstrators struggling to obtain treatment and pay medical expenses months later.

23 operations and more treatment ahead

The gunshot caused extensive damage to the protester’s leg, requiring doctors to perform muscle and skin grafts during a series of operations.

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“About a month has passed since the skin graft, and the Ilizarov device that was fitted to my leg at the beginning of treatment is due to be put back on for about three months,” the protester said.

An Ilizarov apparatus is an external bone-fixation system using metal rings, rods and wires to gradually reposition sections of bone. It can be used to treat severe damage or the loss of part of a bone.

Doctors also attached a vacuum-assisted device to the wound for several months to promote new tissue growth, the protester said.

Infection, nerve damage and numbness later forced doctors to remove some of the repaired tissue and perform a muscle graft about six months after the shooting, according to the protester.

“I asked people who were able to help, but in the end, with great difficulty and even by selling our car, we tried to cover the costs,” he said.

Security fears complicate hospital treatment

Fear of arrest or identification at hospitals has complicated treatment for some protesters wounded during demonstrations, prompting some to seek medical care covertly or at home.

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  Iranian protester undergoes months of secret treatment to save wounded leg

“After one of the surgeries, because there were many security officers in the emergency department, the doctor helped me leave the hospital,” the protester said.

Hospital staff recorded the cause of his injuries as a traffic accident, and his doctor later helped take him to Tehran to continue undergoing surgery, the protester said.

“I really do not know how to thank the medical staff,” he added. “They cooperated extensively and tried to make sure nothing else happened to me.”

Protester recounts January 8 shooting

Security forces initially fired pellets toward demonstrators before a live round struck his leg at close range on the evening of January 8, the protester said.

“My whole body is covered with pellet marks. The bullet hit my leg from close range,” he said. “When I was shot, they dragged me along the ground while I was in a very bad condition. I will never forget that night.”

Security personnel insulted him and tried to remove his clothing after he was wounded, according to his account.

“I held tightly onto my trousers, and they struck my hands with their boots,” he said. “My entire body was bruised, and I even thought my ribs were broken.”

The officers then put him on a motorcycle, the protester said.

“One of them said, ‘Don’t hit him here, take him farther up,’” he said. “I thought they meant they were going to finish me off. I passed out from fear.”

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The protester said he regained consciousness alone in a dark alley, where an elderly couple found him and helped him reach a hospital.

“At first, I thought I was dead,” he said. “Then an elderly woman and man found me. They were like angels to me and helped me get to the hospital.”

The protester said he had joined the demonstrations knowing that doing so could put his life at risk.

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“That night, I went out like many others, and I knew I might lose my life, but for me it was about Iran,” he said.

Six months after the shooting, the protester remains unable to walk, with further procedures ahead and no certainty over when he will regain mobility.

The case has been sent to a Revolutionary Court, with some of the defendants accused of “leading the unrest” or “inciting war and killing,” charges that can carry severe penalties under Iranian law.

The document lists 75 prisoners as defendants in the case, while prosecutors in Isfahan have ordered at least 26 of them to stand trial.

The case was opened after unrest and a fire at Isfahan Central Prison, also known as Dastgerd, following an air strike near the prison in March. A military base and ammunition depot behind the prison were hit, while parts of the prison grounds and accommodation areas were also damaged.

Information accompanying the document said some prisoners were killed during the incident, and others died in the fire.

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Human rights groups, citing witnesses and relatives of prisoners, have said the unrest began after missiles struck a military site behind the prison and projectiles also hit parts of the prison complex. Guards and prison officials left some posts after the explosions, and inmates came out of their wards fearing the facility could collapse, according to those accounts.

The groups said some prisoners then set fire to blankets, sheets and other materials in an effort to force authorities to open doors and allow them into safer areas. Smoke spread through enclosed corridors as the fires grew.

Human rights groups have also said security forces later entered the prison and used live ammunition, pellet rounds and tear gas against inmates. According to witness accounts cited by the groups, some prisoners were shot, while others died from burns or smoke inhalation during the unrest.

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  Iran executes fifth defendant over January protests in Isfahan

Serious charges brought

Prosecutors have brought charges including "inciting people to war and killing each other with the aim of disrupting national security," deliberate arson, destruction of public facilities and taking part in an illegal prison gathering that led to a riot during wartime, according to the document.

Other accusations include destroying surveillance cameras, windows and security doors, taking part in or assisting with property damage and setting fire to the prison infirmary.

Iran International identified 17 prisoners facing such accusations. The documents indicate that 18 prisoners could face death sentences.

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Five prisoners executed in separate case

The referral to the Revolutionary Court comes after five protesters held at Dastgerd were executed over the past two months in a separate case known as the "Alikhani Square" case.

Five other people sentenced in that case are at risk of imminent execution.

The latest case comes amid a rise in executions and heavy prison sentences in Iran in recent weeks as tensions with the United States have intensified.

Concerns over prison conditions

Concerns over Dastgerd have also grown over treatment of inmates and health conditions.

Political prisoner Abdolrasoul Mortazavi said in an audio message from the prison in June that some people detained during the January protests had been tortured. He also reported beatings, harsh interrogations, restrictions on contact with families and limits on outdoor exercise.

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Iran International has also received reports of worsening health conditions and a meningitis outbreak at the prison in recent weeks.

A source familiar with the situation told Iran International in August that several prisoners had died from infectious diseases. Information obtained by Iran International also indicated that meningitis had spread to most prison wards and that some inmates had been taken to Al-Zahra hospital in Isfahan.

One document, a confidential letter from the Supreme National Security Council’s protection unit to the Oil Ministry, raises concerns over the ministry’s decision to hand large volumes of crude to four trusted intermediaries, known as trustees, on credit and at steep discounts.

The crude was allocated after a new oil sales team took control in July, according to the letter.

The former chief executive of Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO) had identified the intermediaries as carrying large debts and failing to return billions of dollars from previous oil sales, the document says.

The ministry nevertheless offered the intermediaries a discount of $8.50 per barrel, a level the confidential letter described as unusual.

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The documents and two Oil Ministry sources point to Mohammad Javad Bavand, a former Revolutionary Guards intelligence official appointed to oversee oil trading, as a central figure in the new arrangement.

Disputed cargo tied to sanctioned tankers

A second confidential document records a closed Oil Ministry meeting on June 28 concerning Iranian crude exported to China aboard three sanctioned tankers linked to Hossein Shamkhani, also known as Hector, an oil trader and son of Ali Shamkhani, a former adviser to slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Two million barrels of crude were shipped through a front company aboard the tanker Lily to China’s Dongjiakou port on March 24, according to the document.

The owner of Lily subsequently took control of the cargo, citing a financial dispute with Panel Good Wholesalers, the company involved in the shipment, the document says.

Lily belongs to a shipping network and shadow fleet controlled by Hossein Shamkhani that has been sanctioned by the US Treasury. Dubai-registered Panel Good Wholesalers is also one of Shamkhani’s companies used for oil trading.

Oil trader Mohammad Hadi Momenin recovered the two-million-barrel cargo at NICO’s request and stored it in tanks at Dongjiakou, participants at the June meeting were told, according to the document.

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Momenin then sought $33 million in compensation from the Iranian oil company, including $27 million for the loss in value of the tanker Covenio following US sanctions and $6 million for charter costs involving another tanker, Jaya.

Bavand instructed Momenin to return ownership of the cargo to the Oil Ministry and, through one of Momenin’s companies, charter Covenio for one year at $90,000 per day, according to the meeting record.

Both Covenio and Jaya belong to Shamkhani’s sanctioned shadow fleet.

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Iran International reported three weeks ago that Momenin was a member of an Intelligence Ministry network known as the Shayan network. Momenin, born in 1989, has failed to return about $2 billion in Iranian oil proceeds, according to Iran International’s previous investigation.

Five traders form Bavand’s network

Momenin is one of five trustees in an oil trading network assembled by Bavand following his return to the Oil Ministry, two ministry sources told Iran International.

Another member is Mostafa Niazazari, the fifth defendant in the corruption case involving former senior judiciary official Akbar Tabari.

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Niazazari was accused in the case of giving Tabari 15,000 square meters of land as a bribe. After fleeing to Canada, he returned to Iran four years ago and has since resumed oil trading while residing in a European country.

Niazazari is the son of Kioumars Niazazari, a former Intelligence Ministry director-general in Mazandaran province.

Two businessmen known for importing essential commodities have also joined Bavand’s network after entering the oil trade during the tenure of former NICO chief executive Saeed Sadeghi, according to the Oil Ministry sources.

Hassan Afrashtehpour, also known as Dariush and the owner of Afra Holding, has for years controlled imports of some essential commodities. An Iranian court sentenced him to 25 years in prison for economic corruption in 1997, but he was released four years later.

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Masoud Modallal, a major importer of cooking oil and animal feed who has faced large banking debts, is another member of the network, the sources said.

Modallal previously received $985 million in preferential-rate foreign currency for essential-goods imports and owed 5.75 trillion rials to Sarmayeh Bank and 7.82 trillion rials to Pasargad Bank.

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Modallal shifted his focus toward oil trading after Iran ended preferential currency allocations, according to the sources.

The fifth member is Ali Bayandorian, a trader sanctioned by the United States six years ago over what Washington described as financing for the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.

Bayandorian uses a network of companies registered in Iran and Southeast Asia to sell oil and petrochemical products outside conventional markets, according to the sources.

Together, the five traders make up what the Oil Ministry sources described as Bavand’s new trustee network.

The two confidential documents obtained by Iran International show members of this network continuing to receive Iranian oil despite outstanding proceeds from previous sales.

From Guards intelligence to oil sales

Bavand studied at Imam Sadiq University, known for combining Islamic studies with modern social sciences, and until 2021, served as deputy to Mostafa Ahadi, the economic deputy of the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization.

Ahadi is a nephew of Ali Akbar Hosseini Mehrab, a security official whose name has appeared in major Iranian corruption cases, including the Crescent gas dispute.

Bavand entered a Supreme National Security Council committee in 2018 following the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and Washington’s restoration of sanctions on Iranian oil.

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The council created a working group to manage oil sales designed to bypass the restrictions, alongside a security committee composed of representatives from Iranian military and intelligence organizations.

The Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization sent Bavand, then deputy head of its economic division, to the security committee.

Bavand built a network of trusted oil intermediaries during his time on the committee, including Majid Azami, chief executive of Sepehr Energy Jahan Nama Pars, Majid Taj, brother of Iranian Football Federation president Mehdi Taj, and trader Hamed Kachoui.

Iran’s oil sales structure changed further after Ebrahim Raisi became president in 2021 and his government authorized the armed forces to participate formally in oil trading.

The Revolutionary Guards subsequently sent Bavand to the Oil Ministry, where he took responsibility for trading oil under sanctions.

A significant part of the problems involving trustees and unreturned oil proceeds emerged during that period.

Following Raisi’s death, Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad initially entrusted management of sanctioned oil sales to officials with previous links to Shayan, an Intelligence Ministry official involved in fuel operations.

Bavand returned to the Oil Ministry following Shayan’s removal.

Paknejad appointed Bavand special assistant to the oil minister for supervision of oil trading after the previous NICO chief executive was removed following disclosures concerning trustees and unreturned oil proceeds.

Bavand is also related to Hossein Taeb, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organization, who is currently the commander of the Basij paramilitary unit, and a figure close to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Bavand now plays a central role in decisions over sanctioned oil sales and has assembled a new group of trusted intermediaries.

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The documents show that traders carrying large outstanding debts from earlier oil sales have again been entrusted with millions of barrels of Iranian crude, placing Bavand and his network at the center of the system used to sell Iran’s oil under sanctions.