US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in an exclusive interview with Iran International, said that the Islamic Republic's economy would contract by more than 25% between March 2026 and March 2027.
The Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has appointed a new commander to its overseas assassination unit and renamed it to Unit 600 after its personnel and structure were exposed, two sources close to the IRGC-QF told Iran International.
Esmail Qaani, commander of the IRGC’s overseas arm, recently appointed Mojtaba Hagh-Lesan to lead the unit previously known as Unit 840, the sources said.
Hagh-Lesan, 64, previously headed the unit’s intelligence department. He replaces Yazdan Mir, also known as Haj Asghar Bagheri, who was killed in a targeted Israeli strike on April 6.
The unit had been without a commander since Mir’s killing, the sources said. Hagh-Lesan’s appointment puts an existing senior member in charge of a formation linked to plots against Iranian dissidents, journalists, former US officials and Israeli targets abroad.
The sources provided Iran International with the unit’s latest command chart, identifying its leadership and the officials responsible for operations across several regions.
Command structure revealed
According to the chart, Mohammad-Reza Ansari serves as Hagh-Lesan’s deputy and oversees the Israel portfolio.
Mohsen Boroujeni heads special operations for the United States and Europe, while Morteza Babaei leads the department responsible for the Middle East and Africa. Javad Sharfaei oversees special operations in Asia.
The chart identifies Meysam Sahraei as an operative involved in preparing attacks in Africa and India. It also names Gholamhossein Hosseini and Mohammad Hosseinpour as prominent operatives involved in the department’s activities.
The sources said the reliance on existing personnel reflected a crisis in the command structure following the killing of senior IRGC officers. They said it had also raised doubts among Quds Force members about the organization’s effectiveness.
Hagh-Lesan’s published work includes two articles in Strategic Studies, a journal published by the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research.
“Regional Unrest and Domestic Security” appeared in the combined fifth and sixth issues, published on September 23, 1999. “US Intervention in the Bosnian Crisis” was published on November 22, 2004.
From US officials to Israeli businessmen
Unit 840 emerged from Unit 400 in the early 2010s on the orders of then-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. Unit 400 is a covert special operations formation with close ties to Hezbollah.
A photograph of Mir alongside Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and senior IRGC commanders Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hejazi illustrates those connections.
Informed sources told Iran International that a Western intelligence service identified and attacked the unit’s headquarters in Damascus in 2020.
The unit subsequently became the focus of investigations into assassination plots abroad.
In August 2022, the US Justice Department charged IRGC member Shahram Poursafi with plotting to assassinate John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during President Donald Trump’s first administration.
Prosecutors said Poursafi offered $300,000 for Bolton’s killing, likely in retaliation for the US strike that killed Soleimani in January 2020.
Iran International’s subsequent investigation, based on information provided by the Black Door hacking group, identified Ansari as the Syria-based Unit 840 commander who led the failed operation against Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
According to that reporting, Poursafi worked under Ansari, and the network sought to hire non-Iranians to conceal Tehran’s involvement. The person recruited to arrange the killings was an FBI informant.
In June 2023, the US Treasury sanctioned Ansari and Poursafi, saying Ansari, with Poursafi’s support, had planned and attempted to assassinate two former US government officials.
Ansari was also linked to a foiled plot against two Israeli businessmen in Colombia. Iran International reported in December 2022, citing an investigation by Infobae, that he had directed the operation through locally recruited criminals.
The businessmen and their families left Bogota under tight security after Colombian intelligence authorities warned them of the threat, according to that reporting.
Criminal networks and journalist targets
Unit 840 has repeatedly sought to use criminal gangs and traffickers to carry out operations abroad.
In Germany, Iran International previously reported that Ramin Yektaparast, an Iranian-German member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, organized attacks against synagogues in Bochum and Essen on behalf of the Quds Force.
The investigation, citing a Western intelligence source and a source within the IRGC, also linked him to a failed plot to assassinate Iranian rapper Shahin Najafi at a concert in Hanover in September 2023.
Yektaparast was shot four times and killed in Tehran on April 28, 2024. Following reports of possible Mossad involvement, the IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency denied he had ties to the Guards and said he was killed in a dispute over “personal matters.”
His funeral notice nevertheless described his death as a “martyr-like ascension,” and he was buried in Section 19 of Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, reserved for fallen IRGC and Basij members.
In Britain, an ITV News investigation exposed a Unit 840 plot, codenamed “the wedding,” to kill Iran International journalists Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet.
ITV reported in December 2023 that Iranian operatives had offered a people-smuggler $200,000 to arrange the murders. It identified Ansari as the commander behind the plot.
The plan failed because the smuggler was working as a double agent for a Western intelligence service and passed details to his handler, according to the investigation. Iran’s embassy in London rejected ITV’s findings as baseless.
In Sweden and Denmark, the Quds Force used Rawa Majid, leader of the Foxtrot criminal network, to attack Israeli-linked targets, according to Iran International’s previous reporting.
Swedish investigative journalist Diamant Salihu told the BBC that Majid fled to Tehran in October 2023 and that his links with Iranian authorities developed afterward. Iran International reported in April 2025 that he was living in Iran under IRGC protection.
Britain sanctioned Majid and Foxtrot in 2025. Iran’s embassy in London denied Tehran’s links to the network.
Repeated intelligence setbacks
The unit has suffered a series of blows through the exposure of its personnel and operations.
In May 2022, footage emerged of an interrogation attributed to Mossad in which Mansour Rasouli, a trafficker linked to Unit 840, said he had been tasked with killing an Israeli citizen in Turkey, a senior US general in Germany and a journalist in France.
Later that month, Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a senior figure in the unit, was shot dead in central Tehran. The New York Times, citing an intelligence official, reported that Israel had told the United States it was responsible.
Those setbacks were followed in June by the removal of Hossein Taeb as head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization.
The following month, Iran International reported that Mossad agents had interrogated Yadollah Khedmati, an IRGC logistics and support commander, near Tehran. Footage of that interrogation was also released.
More recently, Israel announced the disruption of another IRGC network accused of planning attacks on strategic infrastructure and Israeli and Jewish targets abroad.
In a joint statement on April 20, Mossad, the Israeli military and Shin Bet said an operation in Azerbaijan had foiled plans to attack the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Israeli embassy, a synagogue in Baku and Jewish community leaders.
Azerbaijani authorities arrested members of the cell and seized explosive drones and other explosives smuggled from Iran, according to the Israeli account. The suspects had conducted surveillance and photographed targets under orders from handlers in Tehran.
The US, Britain and European Union have imposed sanctions on figures linked to overseas assassination plots. Alongside the US measures against Ansari and Poursafi, Britain sanctioned Unit 840 and Ansari in January 2024. The EU sanctioned Ansari in July 2025, accusing him of ordering the assassination of journalists critical of the Islamic Republic.
Reorganization amid calls for revenge
According to Iran International’s sources, the Quds Force decided to reorganize Unit 840 after its structure and personnel were exposed. Six months after Mir’s killing, Hagh-Lesan’s appointment restores a commander to a unit responsible for covert operations against Iranian government opponents, critical journalists and Israeli targets worldwide.
The reorganization follows public calls for revenge over the killing of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
In July, Hossein Shariatmadari, the supreme leader’s representative at the hardline Kayhan newspaper, urged authorities to declare Trump and pilots involved in Khamenei’s killing people whose killing was a religious obligation.
Kayhan also said the security of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been permanently destroyed. Tehran municipal murals threatened both leaders, including one bearing the English words “We will kill Trump.”
Iranian authorities have also expanded efforts to collect information about government opponents abroad.
In September, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency announced a system called “Alaj” to identify and track such individuals. It urged government supporters to submit information through the system’s website and the Telegram and Bale messaging platforms.
Hezbollah’s external operations unit has been recruiting foreign nationals in Iran and using safe houses in Qom and Tehran to train and shelter recruits, according to information obtained by Iran International.
Information provided to Iran International by an international intelligence agency shows that Hezbollah began contacting foreign students at Al-Mustafa International University five years ago. Those recruited have received training in weapons handling, sabotage, cyberattacks and espionage.
The recruitment operation is conducted in coordination with the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and targets students at Al-Mustafa. The state-run institution was established 18 years ago on the orders of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and has branches in more than 60 countries.
Iran International’s sources identified Mohammad Hassan, an Indonesian national and Al-Mustafa graduate, as the person overseeing Hezbollah’s operation in Iran. Under the supervision of Quds Force commanders, Hassan works for Talal Hamiyah, head of Hezbollah’s Unit 910, the group’s external operations unit.
Under Hassan’s direction, Hezbollah’s recruits maintain numerous safe houses, known as “operations houses,” across Iran. Iran International obtained the locations of four such properties in Qom and Tehran.
Hassan uses an apartment in Kashaneh 2 Tower in Qom’s Velayat district, near Hakim and Payambar-e Azam boulevards, as a safe house for recruitment and training. In Tehran, the network uses properties on Seventh Kish Street in the Naft neighborhood, Third West Sarvestan Street in Rah Ahan and Sarv Alley off Alborz Street in Pounak.
The Quds Force and Hezbollah use the properties as cover to shelter newly recruited members, who also receive training there.
The US Treasury designated Hamiyah a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2012 for supporting Hezbollah’s terrorist activities in the Middle East and around the world. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program offers up to $7 million for information on him.
The unit’s first commander was Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah figure who was killed in 2008. Hezbollah’s external operations unit initially included four prominent figures: Mughniyeh, Mustafa Badreddine, Talal Hamiyah and Ahmad Vahidi, then commander of the Quds Force and now commander-in-chief of the IRGC.
After Badreddine was killed, Hamiyah took command of the unit. Mohammad Hassan is now recruiting for him in Qom.
Iran International’s sources identified cleric Habib Mustafa Zaatar as another participant in the recruitment operation. Born in Lebanon’s Jabal Amel region, he lives in Qom. The sources said Zaatar is a US citizen and travels to the United States several times a year. Zaatar teaches Sharh al-Lum‘ah and its section on hudud punishments at Qom’s religious seminary.
Serving as an adviser at the Noor Islamic Center and Hikmat International Academy in Qom, he teaches Shia religious subjects in English. Tuition for his course at Hikmat Academy is 835,000 tomans per month.
Habib Mustafa Zaatar also has close ties to the Najaf religious seminary. He is a lecturer and researcher at the Al-Abbas shrine in Iraq and has translated several well-known Shia religious books. His command of English gives him a key role in recruiting foreign nationals studying at Al-Mustafa and Qom seminaries.
Iran International also identified four people recruited by Hezbollah who have been training for years as members of a sleeper cell in Iran.
One is Mohammad Zaki Fathoni. He heads the regional leadership council of Indonesia’s Ahlul Bayt Foundation and is a member of the Al-Mustafa alumni association. He represented Indonesia at the Fourth International Congress on Nahj al-Balagha and Alawi Governance, held at Iran’s presidential complex in Tehran in fall 2025, with President Masoud Pezeshkian in attendance.
Another recruit is Ahmad Dzilal Mukhlis. He is also a member of the Al-Mustafa alumni association.
Another Indonesian national in Qom, Seyyed Mohammad Mahdi Ali al-Attas, has also been recruited by Hezbollah. He heads the association of Indonesian students studying in Iran and is a member of Indonesia’s Ahlul Bayt Council. Al-Attas hosts a podcast in which he strongly supports the Islamic Republic and speaks against Israel and Zionism.
A photograph reviewed by Iran International shows al-Attas attending a government-organized Quds Day march in Qom.
The fourth Hezbollah recruit in Iran is Mohammad Saleh. He is an Al-Mustafa student and a member of a religious seminary students’ association. On January 29, 2026, Saleh met Reza Ramazani, secretary-general of the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly, as a member of the Indonesian, Thai and Malaysian religious students’ associations.
According to a photograph published by media outlets inside Iran, Saleh attended a pro-government march in September 2022, days before the protests that followed Mahsa Amini’s death, and called for compulsory hijab for Iranian women. He is active in Qom’s religious circles.
All these activities take place under the cover of Al-Mustafa, which received 1.8 trillion tomans in state funding for the Iranian year that began in March 2026.
Al-Mustafa describes its mission as educating Muslim students in other countries. The United States sanctioned the institution over alleged links to the Quds Force’s military and intelligence activities.
Iran’s Bank Parsian, under US sanctions, used its foreign-exchange arm to move millions of dollars abroad through a network of intermediaries, according to an Iran International investigation based on leaked internal correspondence and transaction records.
The documents, covering the period from November 2022 to May 2023, show how Iran’s central bank and other financial institutions used Parsian Exchange, also known as Sarrafi Parsian, to facilitate payments outside Iran.
The transactions involved multiple layers of banks, companies and individuals, according to the records.
Bank Parsian is a private-sector Iranian bank that the US Treasury designated in October 2018, in an action against a network of companies financing the Basij paramilitary force.
The correspondence shows that four years after the designation, Bank Parsian was still arranging international payments through layered channels.
In most cases, no foreign currency actually left Iran. Foreign currency proceeds from oil, petrochemical and other exports were held in accounts overseas. At Bank Parsian’s instruction, Parsian Exchange transferred funds held in those accounts to overseas bank accounts designated by Iranian importers.
But the payments did not appear to come from the Iranian government, sanctioned banks or the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). Instead, they appeared to originate from private companies, with Parsian Exchange acting as an intermediary.
The process
In a typical transaction documented in the files, an Iranian importer—such as carmaker Iran Khodro—sought foreign currency from the CBI to pay a supplier overseas.
The CBI sold the foreign currency to Bank Parsian, according to the documents. The funds were then held at another Iranian bank in an account belonging to a separate individual or company, described in the records as a “trustee”.
The documents showed that Parsian Exchange facilitated the movement of this money between foreign accounts.
Many of the recipient accounts identified in the documents were held at banks in the United Arab Emirates, China and Hong Kong.
The documents show that, by structuring the transactions through these layers, Parsian Exchange obscured the money trail.
Iran International found no evidence that the banks in the UAE and China knowingly facilitated Iran’s efforts to circumvent US sanctions.
Bank Parsian and Parsian Exchange did not respond to Iran International’s requests for comment.
People behind the letters
Parsian Exchange is a subsidiary of Bank Parsian. The bank directly owns 90% of the company, with the remaining roughly 10% held through Parsian Financial Group, its investment arm.
Iran International identified 33 instruction letters in the leaked documents that directed the movement of UAE dirhams, Chinese yuan and US dollars, with a total value of roughly $36 million.
Almost all the letters were signed by Alireza Alaei, Bank Parsian’s head of international affairs. He joined Parsian Exchange’s board as vice chairman in early 2020 and has served as chairman since mid-2020.
Many of the letters were addressed to Rasoul Salehi Oskouei, Parsian Exchange’s chief executive. Official records show he joined the company’s board in early 2018 and has served as vice chairman and chief executive since early 2020.
Salehi Oskouei had also served at another bank-owned exchange company. More than 12 years before joining Parsian Exchange, he sat on the board of Sepehr Exchange, an affiliate of Bank Saderat, from early 2006 to mid-2008
A review of Parsian Exchange’s current and former executives shows a recurring pattern of ties to Bank Parsian and Setad, the economic conglomerate controlled by Iran’s supreme leader.
Alaei joined the company’s board in early 2020 as a representative of Tamin Andish Pars, a Bank Parsian affiliate, and remains on the board. He also served on the board of Parsis Kish starting in 2015, representing Parsian Insurance.
Hesam Shams Alam, who served on Parsian Exchange’s board from 2010 to 2014, had also sat on the board of Bank Parsian. In 2013, he joined the board of Tadbir Investment Group as a representative of Tadbir Industry and Mine Development, an affiliate of Setad.
Instructions for payments
The letters follow a consistent pattern. Alaei sent them to the international departments of other Iranian banks, including Saman, Shahr, Eghtesad Novin, Tourism Bank, Bank Melli and Bank Mellat, all sanctioned by the United States.
The letters were typically sent about 10 days after the banks purchased foreign currency from the Central Bank of Iran. In its letters to the other banks, Bank Parsian said the foreign currency had been “purchased from the central bank” and was being held “in a trustee account” at the recipient bank.
This is where Parsian Exchange came in. Bank Parsian asked the third-party bank to transfer the funds through Parsian Exchange to the ultimate beneficiary.
The subject line of each letter described the funds as being transferred via an intermediary, meaning the payment abroad was made in the name of a private individual or company rather than an Iranian bank or the state.
In a letter dated early 2023, Alaei sent a letter to the international division of the Tourism Bank. He asked the bank to transfer $990,000 held in a trustee account to an account belonging to SEALION General Trading Limited. A review of public records shows the company was active in Hong Kong.
In May 2023, Alaei asked Tourism Bank’s international affairs division to transfer $750,000 to an account held by SAHERI TRADING LIMITED, also registered in Hong Kong.
Bank-owned exchanges
More than 500 licensed exchange companies are currently registered in Iran, 28 of them owned by banks.
By revenue, Parsian Exchange ranks second among them.
Adjusted to September 2026 prices, Melli Exchange, affiliated with Bank Melli, reported annual operating revenue of 1,253 trillion rials. Parsian Exchange ranked second with 1,168 trillion rials, followed by Omid Sepah Exchange, affiliated with Bank Sepah, with 1,129 trillion rials.
Iranian banks began setting up exchange companies more than two decades ago.
Sepehr Exchange, owned by Bank Saderat, was the first exchange company established by an Iranian bank on 25 July 2004. Parsian Exchange followed two weeks later.
Sepah, the state-owned bank with long-standing ties to the armed forces, owns three separate exchange companies. Bank Melli also operates Melli Exchange.
Sanctions
Parsian Exchange has never been named on the US sanctions list. Under US rules, however, a company owned 50 percent or more by a sanctioned entity is automatically covered by the same sanctions, so US persons are already barred from dealing with it.
In April 2026 the U.S. Treasury sanctioned a company it identified as Bank Parsian’s “rahbar”—a private firm that manages the bank’s overseas payments—and in July 2026 an exchange house it said had contracts with the bank.
The United States has targeted bank-owned exchange companies since 2008, when it sanctioned the exchange arm of the Export Development Bank of Iran.
For about a decade, no new sanctions were imposed targeting exchange companies linked to the Islamic Republic until 2018.
By September 2026, the United States had sanctioned a total of 20 exchange companies based in Iran, including six bank-owned exchanges: Export Development Exchange, Dey Exchange, Sina Exchange, and Hekmat Iranian, Ansar and Omid exchanges, all three of which are subsidiaries of Bank Sepah.
More than three years after Joe Biden took office as president, Washington sanctioned five Iranian exchange companies on June 25, 2024: Hekmat Iranian Exchange, affiliated with the former Hekmat Iranian Bank; Omid Exchange, affiliated with Bank Sepah; Sadaf Exchange; Siavash Nourian Exchange; and Atropars Exchange.
It was the largest round of sanctions targeting Iranian exchange houses since Trump left office.
After Trump returned to the presidency, a new wave of sanctions on Iranian exchange houses began in 2025. By September 2026, the United States had sanctioned 11 more exchange houses.
Senior IRGC commander Hossein-Reza Sadeghi and his son Saeed played central roles in efforts to preserve an IRGC Intelligence oil-sales network and shift its financial operations from the United Arab Emirates to Russia, an Iran International investigation found.
Two informed sources told Iran International that Sadeghi, a senior adviser to the Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief, and his son were at the center of efforts to shift the mechanism for transferring sanctioned oil revenues from the UAE to Russia.
The sources linked the changes to the departure of Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad.
On Sunday, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency reported that Iran’s Central Bank had found an alternative route to repatriate money held by oil intermediaries trusted by the Islamic Republic, known as “trustees,” and transferred $1.5 billion in Iranian oil revenues through Russia’s banking system.
Hours after the report, Paknejad resigned and President Masoud Pezeshkian accepted his resignation.
The two sources said Paknejad’s removal and the change in the money-transfer route were part of an effort to preserve the IRGC Intelligence Organization’s oil-sales corruption network.
Saeed Sadeghi’s role in Iran’s oil sector
Although Saeed Sadeghi currently holds no official Oil Ministry position, he has for years been a trusted Revolutionary Guards figure in Iran’s oil industry.
During Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency, he became chief executive of Amir Kabir Petrochemical Company. He previously served as deputy for legal affairs and contracts at the oil, gas and petrochemical holding company of the Guards’ Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters and at Shastan Investment Holding, which is affiliated with the Defense Ministry.
Two months after Pezeshkian took office, Sadeghi was appointed chief executive of Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO). In September 2025, he was removed just one week after being appointed director of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company.
His removal came after it emerged that trustees had failed to return $8 billion in proceeds from oil sales to Iran.
After anti-government protests broke out in January, several establishment figures said economic pressure stemming from corruption among the trustees had caused the unrest.
Mehdi Kharatian, director of the Hayat-e Siasat think tank and an analyst close to the Islamic Republic, compared “the trustees’ failure to return the dollars” to “the pager operation in Iran” during a video podcast.
Iran International’s sources said Sadeghi traveled to Moscow at his father’s request a week before the start of the 40-day war, apparently to avoid possible judicial proceedings.
He remained in Russia until the war ended and worked on moving the financial network used to handle proceeds from sanctioned Iranian oil sales from the UAE to Russia, the sources said.
Shift from UAE to Russia
On June 6, Mohammad Javad Bavand, a former deputy head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization’s economic affairs division, was appointed the oil minister’s special assistant for sales.
Bavand had held the same position under Raisi and previously represented IRGC Intelligence on the Supreme National Security Council committee tasked with circumventing sanctions.
On June 17, Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati visited Mir Business Bank in Moscow alongside Iran’s ambassador to Russia.
Bank Melli Iran owns all shares in the bank, which is registered in Moscow and has operated since 2002. Mir Business Bank provides correspondent accounts and services for ruble and foreign-currency transactions, connecting Iranian banks with Russia’s banking network.
The US Treasury sanctioned the bank in 2018 for providing financial services to sanctioned Iranian entities.
Iran International’s sources said proceeds from oil sold by the trustees are to be returned to Iran through Russia’s Mir financial network, which they said replaced SWIFT following US banking sanctions.
IRGC Intelligence builds new network
IRGC Brigadier General Hossein-Reza Sadeghi was tasked with completing the IRGC Intelligence Organization’s network for selling Iranian oil, according to Iran International’s sources.
Sadeghi has held senior oversight positions within the Revolutionary Guards, including heading the office responsible for special oversight of IRGC Intelligence on behalf of the Guards’ commander-in-chief. He has also served as deputy coordinator of the IRGC Intelligence Protection Organization.
The sources said the establishment of the IRGC trustee network was approved by Mehdi Sayyari, the new acting head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization.
At the same time, a separate network of oil intermediaries linked to Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, known as Shayan, came under scrutiny by the ministry’s internal security unit. Shayan, the ministry’s director-general for fuel and energy, was subsequently removed from his post.
Previous investigations traced billions in oil proceeds
One week later, Iran International identified nine trustees in the network, including children of senior security figures, among them Ali Rezaei, son of Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei.
Members of the network have collectively failed to return $11 billion in proceeds from Iranian oil sales, Iran International’s investigation found.
Two weeks later, Iran International published two confidential documents showing that Mohammad Javad Bavand, an IRGC-linked official in the Oil Ministry, had assigned the sale of 86 million barrels of Iranian oil to four trustees who already owed money from previous sales.
Iran International’s sources said that after the reports were published, IRGC commander Abdollah Zeighami, also known as Moshfegh and deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards’ media headquarters, held a confidential meeting with Bavand and Mostafa Ahadi, a former deputy for economic affairs at IRGC Intelligence who now serves as deputy head of Unit 600 of the IRGC Intelligence Organization.
The sources said the meeting focused on suppressing reporting about corruption involving IRGC-linked oil trustees.
Iran International’s sources said Sunday’s transfer of $1.5 billion in oil proceeds from Russia to Iran marked the completion of the Revolutionary Guards’ project.
Paknejad resigned hours later.
The sources said Paknejad had himself played a central role in establishing oil-sales corruption networks involving two of the Islamic Republic’s security agencies. He was removed after the new IRGC Intelligence network had been completed, while all the trustees remained free.
Iran International has obtained exclusive information and documents indicating that Mostafa Ahadi, a senior official in the IRGC Intelligence Organization, runs the organization’s corruption network in the sale of Iran’s oil.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.