They single out former First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi. He is accused of using his high-level government position to pressure leaders of the National Insurance Company, forcing them to transfer large sums of US currency to accounts under his control. On September 30, Iranian authorities formally indicted Rahimi, charging him with embezzling public funds. Taking Iran’s decision-making structure into account, Rouhani first enlisted the support of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before setting out after one of Ahmadinejad’s closest associates.
Another prominent person who has come under criminal investigation is Iranian multimillionaire Babak Zenjani, the owner of numerous companies and assets. His net worth, according to Western experts, is estimated at nearly $14 billion. During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, shady contracts for the sale of crude oil were funneled through Zenjani to skirt sanctions on shell corporations. This was necessary to supplement the country’s budget. According to the testimony of Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangene, Zenjani owes his agency $2.7 billion, which was transferred to Malaysia‘s First Islamic Investment Bank. The money was earmarked to pay contractors for their work in Iran’s oil refining sector.
Zenjani is also accused of not paying back a large amount of money he obtained from black-market oil transactions, a sum of about several billion dollars. As for Zenjani himself, he says that Western sanctions are to blame. Because of the sanctions a portion of the money “is stuck” in foreign banks, he says.
