![]() drone strike in Iraq in 2020, and has been heavily promoted by the Islamic regime as a martyr and national hero. The topics of the discussion between Jafari and Zolghadrnia suggests it came before Jafari was replaced as head of the IRGC in 2019 and before Qalibaf, who once commanded the IRGC's air force and served as Tehran mayor from 2005 to 2017, rose to become speaker of Iran's parliament in 2020.Īnother prominent figure whose name features in the discussion is Qasem Soleimani, the then-head of the Quds Force, which under his command was engaged in military operations and support for militias in Syria, among other countries. It is believed to have been dissolved in February 2018, and some of its managers were sentenced to prison in the 2021 Supreme Court ruling for complicity in fraud, money laundering, and illegal seizure of funds.Īmong those sentenced in the case was former IRGC member Mahmud Seif, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and former Qalibaf deputy Issa Sharifi, who was fined and handed a 20-year prison sentence. Yas Holding was a development company reportedly set up to support Quds Force activities in Syria. The foundations are widely believed to be used to funnel revenue to groups that support the regime, including mercenaries working closely with the IRGC's Quds Force, which is responsible for military operations abroad. That corruption case involved entities including Yas Holding, a subsidiary of the IRGC's Cooperative Foundation, one of the many opaque, state-funded trusts in Iran that the military branch employs to exert significant influence on the domestic economy. ![]() The leaked recording fills in some of the blanks, and indicates that high-ranking regime members and one of the Islamic republic's most heralded military commanders were at the least well aware of the particulars. While the prison sentences handed down by the Supreme Court were reported in Iranian state media, the details of the corruption charges were not. ![]() The precise date of the recording obtained by Radio Farda from a confidential source in Iran is not known, but the conversation appears to have taken place amid a years-long corruption investigation that first emerged in 2017 and resulted in a top IRGC commander and a Tehran deputy mayor being sentenced to lengthy prison sentences in March 2021. In the audio, former IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari and his deputy for construction and economic affairs, Sadegh Zolghadrnia, can be heard discussing corruption investigations within the IRGC and Tehran's municipality under then-Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. congressionally funded media outlet banned in Iran - is engaging in "psychological warfare" intended to destroy the IRGC. ![]() The implication in the recording, published in a wide-ranging exposé by RFE/RL's Radio Farda on February 11, that some of the country's most powerful decision-makers were aware of or involved in corrupt practices has prompted a furious reaction in Tehran, including from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Īmid the outcry that erupted following the publication of the audio file, state bodies and top officials have gone on the defensive with fierce denials of wrongdoing, claims that the recording proves the regime's commitment to fighting corruption, and accusations that Radio Farda - a U.S. A leaked audio recording in which two former senior officials of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) discuss corruption that helps fund the powerful force and its secretive military operations abroad has shed light on infighting and graft that extends to the hierarchy of the country's clerical regime. ![]()
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