Babak Zanjani narrated by Ishaq Jahangiri

Ishaq Jahangiri wrote in his memoirs:

The strangest case that I faced in my entire working and management life was the corruption case related to Babak Zanjani.  A case that can be considered the biggest example of corruption in the world.  During the embargo period, in the 10th government, he was able to communicate with various institutions in the country and his position was strengthened to such an extent that oil was available to him to sell.

He also receives oil in several stages and cannot sell it, or if I want to be more precise, he does not return the money received from the shipments to the Ministry of Petroleum within the stipulated deadline, and of course, this is not enough. At the same time, according to his claims about the access he has outside of Iran, he was given a sum of money (in the form of foreign currency) to pay the contractors of the National Oil Company.  The National Oil Company will provide him with this amount from the resources provided by "Niko" Company.

At this time, he bought a small credit institution (FTIB), which was practically just an office and did not have any special or public activities, on an island in Malaysia and introduced it to the government as an intermediary bank, and the government could not understand what this bank's position was.  Of course, the reality is that under the sanctions, the officials have to trust any small bank for financial transactions, but this trust has a limit, and they did not consider that several hundred million dollars should not have been deposited to a small institution in Malaysia.

In total, Babak Zanjani's debt to the country is around 2 billion 660 million dollars (equivalent to 2 billion 67 million euros).  These numbers should be carefully considered.  At one time, the US Congress approved a budget equal to 20 million dollars for subversion in Iran or another country, but in this case, more than 2 billion 660 million dollars of the country's assets have been lost.  Such a significant amount cannot be converted and invested easily, and no matter how quickly it has been done, still a large part of this money should still be traceable, but still our judicial and security agencies could not find the location of this money;  An issue that has really become a black spot in the Islamic Republic.

Naturally, the expectation of the people is that the money will be returned and it will be clarified what the grounds for the formation of this corruption were and what was behind the scenes of this story.  In my opinion, the Babak Zanjani case is not a case limited to the violation of a person and a process, and has larger dimensions that remain unsolved.  Leaving these questions unanswered creates the ground for the repetition of similar cases.

Holding a public trial for Babak Zanjani, and basically for any case similar to it, was necessary, and if it happened, it could reduce some of the ambiguities created by public opinion.  I still really believe that everyone in the Islamic Republic has a responsibility and can play a role, whether in the judiciary or in the government, one of their most important missions is to be able to solve the issue of corruption related to Babak Zanjani.  A case with these details required dozens of court hearings to be held and the people involved in it to be held accountable.

We sincerely believed that such cases should not be repeated during our time in the government, and both Mr. Rouhani and Mr. Zanganeh exerted a strong will in the government so that despite the extensive sanctions of the United States, especially during the Trump era, and the extensive restrictions that were imposed on oil exports, a phenomenon similar to Babak Zanjani's would not occur in this period.

I really believed that if another Babak Zanjani appeared, not only a minister, but the entire government would not have the authority to stay in this position.  The topic of Babak Zanjani was important to me and I spent a lot of time on it.  I believed that the issue of fighting corruption should be made public and public opinion should be brought to work so that the path of fighting corruption can be paved for the government and the judicial system.  Corruptors have strong supports and these supports always come to the stage with good-looking faces, and for such a fight, you should be well-equipped and not afraid of any label or slander.

The cases of corruption in the Zanjani case were complex and numerous.  The margins related to the large land that belonged to him on "Iran Zameen" street in Tehran is also a strange case.  He had bought this land worth 500 or 700 billion tomans and transferred 8 thousand billion tomans from one company to another.  This assignment of eight thousand billion tomans was guaranteed by a financial and credit institution (Development Financial and Credit Institution), which was one of the most delinquent credit institutions, and later its activity was limited and dissolved in the last days of the 12th government by the approval of the Money and Credit Council.  Relying on this land, the Development Institute had provided Babak Zanjani with a guarantee bond of 8 thousand billion tomans, which later the central bank considered issuing it beyond the ability and competence of this institution and canceled it.

In another case, during Saeed Mortazavi's presidency of the Social Security Organization, Babak Zanjani planned to buy 140 companies of the Social Security Organization at once.  He had presented a letter from a Malaysian bank to Maskan Bank that he has a deposit of five billion dollars with that bank so that he can buy the companies.  Of course, all this was stopped and did not go forward, but the important thing was that no one investigated the background and the corrupt network surrounding these violations was not identified.

After Babak Zanjani's death sentence was announced, in a meeting with Mr. Amoli Larijani, the head of the judiciary at the time, I told him that regardless of the verdict, the issue of returning the money to the country should be resolved first.  To be fair, the judicial system did not fail and both the next heads of the authority and at that time Mr. Ajei were persistent.  I had suggested that in the process of questioning Babak Zanjani, all agencies should be involved and that the process of the case should be clear for the security agencies.  At one point, his file was in the hands of the Ministry of Information, and then at a point in time, it was also in the hands of the IRGC.

But every time he bought time with a trick and diverted the interrogations;  One day he would provide a SWIFT certificate which turned out to be fake, the other day he would bring a correspondence from a Russian or Canadian bank that had announced that they were ready to transfer money, which again turned out to be fake.  He had also bought property in Tajikistan, and people from Tajikistan suggested that they arrange for the return of all these properties to Iran in exchange for a reduction in Zanjani's death sentence.  Of course, many of these suggestions and solutions did not come to fruition and had no support.

In general, not many assets were identified from him, for example, there was an airline company in Turkey, or a sum of money in Dubai, or the land on Iran Street, the land in Shahrak Gharb.

One of Mr. Zanganeh's usual talks was that one of our important duties is to protect the life of Mr. Babak Zanjani.  Both we in the government were sensitive and the judiciary dealt with this issue sensitively.  My opinion is that there is a lot of support for Babak Zanjani to be released from prison, and he is sure that there is a current that supports him, and it is impossible to say that corruption has happened on such a large scale and Gardi has not sat at the feet of any senior official in the country.  It is possible that the signatures of these four officials were due to ignorance and deceiving the expert system, but the root cause of the issue was not investigated properly, and if it was investigated, the result was not informed to us.

One of the most important issues that we emphasized in the 11th and 12th government was that something similar to Babak Zanjani should not happen in the new period of sanctions.  For example, a person would come and claim, as before, that he could bring a significant amount of money, for example 5 or 10 billion dollars, into the country;  These people were usually supported and approved by people inside the country.  During this period, the central bank first checked the authenticity and said that you should enter 10% of the amount in dollars so that the claim can be measured, and this procedure led to the control of many incorrect processes.