Theft of the Century Investigations: The list of those involved includes political leaders, faction

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[size=52]Theft of the Century Investigations: The list of those involved includes political leaders, faction leaders, and senior officials[/size]

[size=45]Translated by: Hamed Ahmed[/size]
[size=45]The British (Middle East Eye) website, after examining exclusively the report of the Parliamentary Investigation Committee investigating the circumstances of the theft of $ 2.5 billion from a government bank account, which is made up of multiple political parties, revealed that some officials in the previous government were a tool in executing and facilitating the theft and helped smuggle the money. stolen out of the country.[/size]
[size=45]A report by the British (Middle East Eye) website, translated by (Al-Mada), stated that “arrest warrants were issued on Friday against four people who held high positions in the previous government.”[/size]
[size=45]The report added, "These officials are the former Minister of Finance, Ali Allawi, Raed Jouhi, director of Al-Kazemi's office, Mashreq Abbas, the political advisor to Al-Kazemi, and Ahmed Najati, the personal secretary of the former prime minister."[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out, “This is on charges of facilitating the acquisition of tax secretariat funds, and orders were issued to seize their movable and immovable funds, and all of them denied these charges.”[/size]
[size=45]The report stated, “The arrest warrants were issued following the emergence of new evidence indicating the involvement of a number of other people in the previous government.”[/size]
[size=45]He stressed, "The authorities are also seeking to arrest two Kuwaiti merchants of Iraqi origin, who are close to Allawi."[/size]
[size=45]The report quoted, “Former Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, as saying that the investigation lacks acceptable limits of impartiality, and indicates a clear political approach in targeting and terminating anyone associated with or working with the previous government.”[/size]
[size=45]And the report continued, “Al-Kazemi stated that the investigation process targeted some people with the intention of covering up the actual criminals.”[/size]
[size=45]And he stated, “The investigation committee found that the amount that was withdrawn from the Rafidain Bank is four trillion dinars, equivalent to 3 billion dollars.”[/size]
[size=45]The report spoke of “withdrawing the amount through 260 instruments distributed among seven private companies, for the period from September 2021 to August 2022.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "Five of the seven companies were newly established and do not have tax records, and the remaining two companies were purchased by the defendants for the purpose of completing the theft."[/size]
[size=45]And the report added, “None of these companies has a legal authorization from the actual owners of the tax secretariats to withdraw these secretariats, despite their claim to do so.”[/size]
[size=45]He also mentioned that “the stolen money is money that was paid in advance by companies in exchange for future tax responsibilities, and previously the Financial Supervisory Authority was the authority to audit requests for repayment of tax secretariats.”[/size]
[size=45]The report added, “However, a few weeks before the theft of financial deposits began, a change occurred allowing these funds to be withdrawn without the approval of the FSA. The investigation committee stated that the official communications related to this change were described as the main factor for theft.[/size]
[size=45]A senior official in the Ministry of Finance said that the Financial Supervisory Authority had indicated in a previous report that the tax deposits in the bank account were at risk and tried to warn that people might try to withdraw these funds illegally, however, it seems that there is no one who Take these alerts seriously.[/size]
[size=45]The official added, "The oversight body's reports became the secret key that allowed the plan to evolve from A to Z."[/size]
[size=45]The official pointed out that "the only people who paid attention to the warnings were the thieves themselves who followed these warnings to reach the location of the money and put in place mechanisms to steal it."[/size]
[size=45]And the report continues, “The FCA sent in November 2017 the results of the oversight and audit it conducted on tax secretariats for the years 2015, 2016, and the first four months of 2017 to the Prime Minister’s Office and to the General Tax Authority.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "The oversight authority included in its report many observations, the most prominent of which was related to how to collect huge amounts of tax deposits in one account."[/size]
[size=45]The report stressed that “the procedures for refinancing deposits were flawed and erroneous, and may lead to manipulation.”[/size]
[size=45]And he goes on, that “the Financial Supervisory Authority found that more than 4.9 trillion dinars (approximately 4 billion dollars) of tax secretariats had been collected in one bank account owned by the General Authority for Taxes at the Al-Ahrar branch of Al-Rafidain Bank,” explaining that “the supervisory authority contacted at the time Department of Accounts of the Ministry of Finance to solve these loopholes.[/size]
[size=45]A senior official familiar with the investigations said, "All the information revealed by the investigations so far indicates that the theft was planned sometime between 2018 and 2020."[/size]
[size=45]The official added, “The network of those involved in this theft is wide, as it includes political leaders, leaders of armed factions, and former and current senior officials, but the name that is repeated at every stage of the investigation is Raed Jouhi.”[/size]
[size=45]He pointed out that the strange thing is that all the other names either lead to mentioning his name, or that he is related to those names in one way or another.[/size]
[size=45]And the report continued, “The report of the investigation committee did not specify exactly the alleged role that Jouhi played in this case, but it mentioned the name of the former prime minister’s office as including the main parties involved in the theft.”[/size]
[size=45]And he emphasized, “The investigation committee stated that the office contacted officials of the Ministry of Finance, directors of the General Tax Authority and branches of the concerned bank without referring to the name of Finance Minister Allawi, and recommended the relevant authorities to cancel the oversight body’s requests to audit the procedures for re-payment of tax deposits.”[/size]
[size=45]The report stated, “Investigations indicate that the individual, Alaa Khalaf Maaran, Jouhi’s private secretary, was always accompanying businessman Nour Zuhair Jassim, the main suspect of theft, on his foreign trips over the last two years, during which Zuhair used his private plane to travel.”[/size]
[size=45]And he stated, “The issuance of an arrest warrant against Maaran in November, for his role in facilitating the smuggling of stolen money outside Iraq.”[/size]
[size=45]The report stated, "Investigations indicated that Zuhair, who possesses a diplomatic passport, made approximately 21 foreign trips between 2021 and 2022 using his private plane."[/size]
[size=45]A senior Iraqi official familiar with the investigation said, “I was shocked when I read the results of the investigations. It is a farce of the age, not theft of the age.”[/size]
[size=45]And the official added, "Nour Zuhair, who was a wanted person holding a diplomatic passport, was accompanied by a high-ranking intelligence officer or an official from the Prime Minister's Office on every trip he took."[/size]
[size=45]And the official went on, that "the only explanation for this is that he was using his private plane in the process of transferring money, there is no other explanation."[/size]
[size=45]About: (Middle East Eye)[/size]
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