![\"iran-isfahan-mobarakeh-steel-company\"](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/iran-isfahan-mobarakeh-steel-company.jpg\" "\\"iran-isfahan-mobarakeh-steel-company\\"")
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On August 16, a parliamentary investigation report concerning a huge embezzlement case in the Mobarakeh Steel Company in Isfahan\u00a0made headlines<\/a>\u00a0in the Iranian state media.\u00a0The report that was the result of the Investigation and Examination Committee of the regime\u2019s parliament demonstrated 300,000 documents, which showed the entire regime’s establishment is involved in fraud, bribery, embezzlement, and corruption.<\/p>\n The report suggested that the company in question, sanctioned by<\/a> the former US administration, had a case of embezzlement worth 92 trillion tomans. Considering the average USD to IRR<\/a> rate from March 2018- December 2021, the dollar equivalent of the embezzlement would be around $5.25 billion USD.<\/p>\n With 108 trillion tomans (equal to $6.17B) net profit last year alone, Mobarakeh Steel Company (MSC) is officially one of the biggest private businesses and nominally affiliated with the regime\u2019s Ministry of Industries, Mining, and Trade. Nonetheless, MSC’s policies are actually determined by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)<\/a> and which control about 3,000 factories and companies in the country.<\/p>\n Though MSC stocks are widely distributed among various ministries, the recent fiasco which caused a serious decline in the stock market is heavily striking the smaller shareholders, the ordinary people.<\/p>\n The company supplies raw materials for more than 3000 companies in the petrochemical, gas, and car industries, and thus, the embezzlement implicates a large part of the regime’s economy.<\/p>\n The investigative report suggests that MSC sold steel sheets to Saipa and Iran Khodro<\/a> (largest domestic car manufacturers) at lower rates while these enterprises have sold their surplus steel at higher fees on the market.<\/p>\n The report also found that Mohammadreza Saket, head of security at Sepahan Football<\/a> Club of Isfahan, received a monthly salary of 92 million tomans, and in one case, he had considered a bonus of 276 million tomans for himself. The MSC has been using the Sepahan Club for money laundering since 2019, the investigation reported.<\/p>\n To understand the dimensions of this case, some modest comparisons might serve as insight:<\/p>\n – The amount in question is almost 9 trillion tomans more than state-distributed subsidies for the entire population in the last year (1400 according to the Persian calendar)<\/p>\n – It attributed to 2.5 times the construction budget of Iran’s 31 provinces last year<\/p>\n – It is twice the amount of the budget allocated for Tehran province in the year 1400 (Persian calendar)<\/p>\n – The number of violations in the MSC case was more than the publicly announced one-year budget of seven ministries of Intelligence, Interior, Economy and Finance, Culture and Islamic Guidance, Sports and Youth, Communication and Information Technology, and the Agriculture Jihad.<\/p>\n August 3 – Isfahan, central #Iran<\/a> — People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) August 3, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
Workers of the Mobarakeh Steel Company went on strike today demanding higher wages. #IranProtests<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/jZdYu0Utrk<\/a><\/p>\n