What is the "Iranian cartel" that Al-Sadr aimed at? (news analysis)

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[size=52]What is the "Iranian cartel" that Al-Sadr aimed at? (news analysis)[/size]

[size=45][You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]In the capital, Baghdad, you can find advertising banners for private banks with concrete walls and individuals from security companies, but it is difficult to notice that at least one customer enters these banks to complete a financial transaction. These newly created small institutions hide part of a complex financial "cartel" of smuggling and money laundering.[/size]
[size=45]This ghostly cartel enters the arena of the political conflict in the country after the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, demanded, on February 17, that suspicious banks be held accountable for “currency smuggling and bill fraud.” This direct movement was supposed to take a pressure path, but Arguing with Finance Minister Ali Allawi took it to something else.[/size]
[size=45]It is difficult to be sure that al-Sadr was able to dismantle the largest cohesive group of financial manipulation, with political parties and armed factions behind it, but his move was a reminder to opponents that he does not receive political blows from opponents of the majority coalition without a response.[/size]
[size=45]There is conflicting information, though few, about the nature of this cartel and its godfathers and the way in which it operates to achieve profits estimated at millions of dollars from smuggling and counterfeiting operations, but reliable sources say that this type of operation has escalated and taken an organized form, since Washington imposed its sanctions on Iran.[/size]
[size=45]It is usually difficult to document the sources when it comes to issues of smuggling and hard currency, and in the end it is fragmentary and conservative data that reflects a dangerous environment in which this cartel is active. There are serious fears of the immediate liquidation of those who reveal the secrets.[/size]
[size=45]But the composition of these scattered pieces of information, which was leaked during the past four years, shows a preliminary picture of how this cartel operates, and its association with political and armed groups, and behind them is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.[/size]
[size=45]The picture indicates that the Iraqi militias have established in the past years fake banks and companies that buy dollars from the official currency market with forged invoices and correspondences, while there is conflicting information about their annual profits, but boycotting the numbers indicates that the rate of dollar depletion exceeds 500 million dollars per day, from financial and commercial outlets. different.[/size]
[size=45]According to a senior source, these funds are linked to bank accounts established after the US sanctions in the capitals of Syria, Lebanon and Tehran. According to deputies in the former Iraqi parliament, these funds not only helped Iran ease those sanctions, but also financed areas of tension in countries, especially the internal conflicts that erupted in the past five years.[/size]
[size=45]But the Iraqi government’s decision, on the recommendation of international bodies, to reduce the value of the Iraqi dinar has upset Iranian accounts, because what it withdraws from US dollars from the country costs a larger local currency, and different import transactions.[/size]
[size=45]Asharq Al-Awsat obtained an excerpt from a dialogue between an Iraqi businessman, who is close to one of the Iraqi factions, with an unknown person, speaking about the scenes of the "Iranian adaptation" to the exchange rate.[/size]
[size=45]The businessman said that “the decision to devalue the dinar prompted the commercial attaché in the Iranian embassy in Baghdad to establish economic offices in a number of Iraqi provinces to receive the amounts of imported goods in dollars in cash instead of transfers, to be deposited later in Iraqi banks affiliated with militias or Iranian banks operating in Iraq.”[/size]
[size=45]Iranian companies specialized in the construction, electrical appliances and consumer goods sectors are active in Iraq. In recent years, they have resorted to offering their goods in hard currency at a lower price to ensure the smooth flow of sales, and to win large government contracts at the expense of their local competitors. Most of these companies prefer to receive their money by hand, rather than through the official transfer methods.[/size]
[size=45]A former financial official explains part of the smuggling of money through fake banks and companies; Where fake or counterfeit import invoices are presented at high costs in dollars to be withdrawn from the currency sale window.[/size]
[size=45]The fact is that withdrawing high amounts of dollars through the Iraqi sales window means that Iraqi oil revenues are drained in favor of Tehran through these tricks that are fortified with the influence of armed groups, because the Iraqi government needs to convert the oil dollar into the Iraqi dinar to operate the internal financial activity through the Ministry of Finance.[/size]
[size=45]Iraqi deputies revealed financial differences that exceeded $25 billion in 2020 between the volume of remittances for importing goods and the value of goods entering the country.[/size]
[size=45]This suspicious financial map, sponsored by political parties with armed arms, reflects the size of the protected incursion of the Iranian financial cartel, through 3 axes; The deployment of Iranian financial institutions throughout the country, whose mission is to withdraw hard currency, and then transfer it to a banking team loyal to the "Revolutionary Guard", whose mission is to distribute shares between Tehran and finance armed groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, while armed parties protect this map, as well as For securing the transportation of goods and money outside and to the country.[/size]
[size=45]Within this cartel, the roles are divided between Shiite factions, each of which has financial and commercial dealings with influential figures in the Revolutionary Guards, and leaders in the Lebanese Hezbollah, which greatly facilitated securing bank accounts in Damascus and Beirut.[/size]
[size=45]During the past years, this financial dynamic of the Iraqi factions was subjected to an imbalance “under control” due to personal competition between the faction leaders, who worked hard to win the most important and largest financial contracts resulting from money laundering and smuggling, which is translated by commercial facilities established by leaders in these groups, from commercial centers. And hotels, fields for raising livestock, hospitals and charitable institutions that operate under religious names.[/size]
[size=45]The Iraqi factions fear that al-Sadr’s victory in the recent elections will give the ability to dismantle this cartel, and political sources say that behind the scenes in some meetings between the “Framework” and “the Current” included “questions to Sadr about his intentions in this sensitive aspect of the factions’ activity, and whether there is a limit minimum guarantees.[/size]
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