A booty of dirty money amassed for more than four decades, which the regime is trying to move discreetly. Since the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old young woman who died after her arrest by the morality police, the protest movement against the regime has not weakened despite the violence of the repressions. The great Franco-Iranian reporter, Emmanuel Razavi, reported, in an investigation published on Paris Matchthis Thursday, February 2, how the Mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards have begun to shelter the treasures they have accumulated since the fall of the shah in 1979.
Weapons, drugs and prostitution
“You should know that the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has been the armed wing of the Islamic Republic of Iran for 44 years, has amassed a veritable war chest which has in fact been built up on arms trafficking, gold trafficking, gold bullion. It is the billions that come from criminal activities that are laundered, placed in accounts abroad, “he says at the microphone of Europe 1 on Thursday. According to his information, the Revolutionary Guards have also amassed a lot of money through drug trafficking and prostitution. “The Revolutionary Guards made deals with the Colombian or Mexican mafias. They acted like drug dealers.” For him, this regime was clearly organized like a mafia.
“‘Narcos’ among the Mullahs”
If no one knows the true amount of the fortune of the Mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards, Emmanuel Razavi estimates that it could amount to 100 billion dollars. “We have the impression of being in an episode of the series Narcos among the Mullahs. It should be remembered that the Revolutionary Guards have their own special forces, their navy, their own air force, but they also control more than 60% of the Iranian economy, not to mention the borders and customs… They are at the both the cop and the robber. They do exactly what they want with the money they raise, they do what they want with the trades they do.”
Still, the wave of popular protest that is shaking Iran seems to be shaking the “mafia” of the Mullahs, as evidenced by the 10 billion dollars in “war treasury” that have already left the country in recent months.