Acquisition of private companies under pressure by the IRGC

Any company in the private sector, if it remains now in Iran, will have to deal with the projects of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Khatam al-Anbiya garrison, and be under the supervision and control of the IRGC. If it disagrees on a matter, it will face the fate of Oriental Oil.

Oriental Oil Company was transferred to Khatam al-Anbia Construction Garrison in 2006 with all of its equipment and capital. The company’s assets were valued at $90 million. A year earlier, the CEO of this private company was “prosecuted” under pressure from the IRGC to merge with the Khamenei‘s Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters under the judiciary order.

Billions of dollars in profits of the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya headquarter, without paying taxes!

Khatam al-Anbiya headquarter does not pay taxes, despite all the enumerated assets it has plundered from the Iranian people’s wealth and all other cases of encroachment whose names are not even mentioned in this article. The IRGC has not only refused to pay a single rial in taxes for billions of dollars in revenue until 2016, but it does not report on its economic activities to the Iranian people, the parliament, and the government. Instead, it has a budget line beyond all executive, educational, industrial, and military sectors, and this budget is increasing every year.

In August 2017, the IRGC Fars News Agency wrote in a report: “Khatam al-Anbiya has completed 2,500 provincial and national projects since its inception.” That means an average of 90 annual projects, which are the country’s most significant economic projects, gifted to the Khatam-al Anbiya!

Carrying out free projects in other countries by the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya

The vast dimensions of Mullahs’ regime payment for the IRGC without audit are such that it has enabled the IRGC to carry out free projects for fore different partners of the regime in the region or around the globe.

The IRGC Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Yazdi, The Deputy of Legal Affairs of the IRGC in Parliament, announced in 2011: “The scope of activities of the Khatam al-Anbiya construction garrison is not limited to Iran. The purpose of the Khatam’s presence in those countries is not for profit, but it is about exporting the revolution. Many of these countries have not yet been able to meet their obligations. And they owe it to the government and Khatam al-Anbiya construction garrison,” he continued, “But this body has fulfilled most of its obligations in the contracting countries, and they are satisfied!”

Sanction of the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters

In May 2010, the United States imposed sanctions on Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters, its subsidiaries, and the then commander, Rostam Ghasemi. On June 9 of that year, the UN Security Council issued resolutions imposing sanctions on Makin, Rahab, Fatir, and the Consulting Engineers and 40 other companies and institutions of Khatam-al Anbiya.

There is a keyword in Iran, “sanctions businessmen” the reality about this keyword is that the expansion of the Khatam al-Anbiya to more sources, even though the Khatam al-Anbiya is under sanctions, however, it has benefited from the sanctions!

How did this happen?

Large multinational companies left the Iranian market due to the US sanctions, either imposed during the tenure of Mahmood Ahmadinejad, or the new round of sanctions after the US withdrawal from 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers.

In the meantime, and in the absence of alternatives in the private sector, this time, it was the IRGC‘s Khatam al-Anbiya that undertook part-time projects, received a huge budget, and made an enormous profit it. While other economic sectors are within the paralyzed economic system, this body will continue to operate.

In April 2010, Turkish companies refused to continue the third phase of the South Pars oil and gas field development project. The $7 billion projects without participating in any auctions, was handed over to the Khatam al-Anbiya.

In May 2010, Rostam Ghasemi, then-commander of the Khatam base, announced: “The Revolutionary Guards will replace Shell and Total companies in South Pars.”

With the announcement of the withdrawal of the “Spanish company Repsol” from operating in the South Pars oil and gas field in June 2010, this $5 billion project was handed over to Khatam al-Anbia without participating in any auctions.

On March 19, 2017, the regime’s “News Network” television reported that only one of the sources of the Khatam al-Anbiya, the Persian Gulf oil refinery, was receiving $60 million a day, which is a huge profit for the IRGC.

Iran’s wealth in the hands of the IRGC and Khamenei and more than nine deciles of the Iranian people below the poverty line

Everyone is shocked when only tiny aspects of the IRGC’s domination on Iran’s economy that have been mediated are revealed.

The point that we should not forget after the unlimited plundering of Iranian wealth by the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya is that all this money flows from the public wealth of the Iranian people into the pockets of the IRGC and the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. They spend this money for funding their warmongering polices across the region. However, according to the regime’s media, with a basic salary of nearly 2 million tomans, while the poverty line in Iran has reached 10 million tomans, more than nine deciles of Iranians live below the poverty line.