By Pishtaz | 2025-04-04

As the Iranian people suffer the effects of an acute economic crisis, exacerbated by the actions of their government, senior intelligence officials have been abusing their position of power to line their own pockets.

Public outrage followed the revelation that senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization (IRGC-IO) officials had stolen $21 million in cryptocurrency, per leaked court documents obtained by Iran International.

In May 2021, Mehdi Hajipour and Mehdi Badi of the IRGC's economic crimes branch initiated a probe into Cryptoland CEO Sina Estavi without legal basis.

Security analysts described the probe as a typical IRGC tactic for intimidating successful technology executives.

Within 24 hours of Estavi's detention -- before any official announcement -- six billion tokens of Cryptoland's BRG cryptocurrency vanished from his digital wallet, Iran International reported March 30.

Subsequent verification by a court-appointed expert confirmed Hajipour's wallets had sold BRG tokens worth over $21 million.

Court documents also implicated IRGC-IO interrogators Majid Jahan Parto, Majid Tabatabaei, as well as four others involved in document forgery.

The scheme fell apart in March 2022 when IRGC counterintelligence caught Hajipour accepting $10,000 from Estavi. Estavi believed he was buying back the stolen tokens from a third party, but was unknowingly paying Hajipour, who had adopted a fake identity, according to Iran International.

Half of the affected investors were repaid using Estavi's accounts during his imprisonment, before he fled Iran, under pressure.

About 25,000 victims still await compensation.

Though Hajipour's appeal was rejected in September 2022, full sentences for the network members remain undisclosed.

'Political earthquake'

The scandal triggered high-level fallout. IRGC-IO chief Hossein Taeb -- the most powerful figure in Iran's intelligence apparatus -- was dismissed three months after Hajipour's arrest, and has been replaced by Mohammad Kazemi.

Taeb had been at the helm of the IRGC's intelligence division since its inception.

The IRGC offered no reason or explanation for the shakeup, which Iran's Sharq daily and Iranian analysts described as "a political earthquake."

The case highlights Tehran's contradictory approach to cryptocurrency.

Many Iranians have sought cryptocurrencies to protect their savings against the plummeting rial.

But the Iranian regime bans citizens from mining Bitcoin and using foreign crypto platforms, and the Central Bank of Iran has blocked payment gateways and restricted licensed platforms to one-way trading.

This effectively prevents Iranians from purchasing digital assets.

Meanwhile, a state-controlled digital rial and cryptocurrency system modeled on the regime's Shaparak network is being developed -- a move security analysts say aims to tighten government surveillance and financial control.

"Such schemes seek to create new channels of theft and income for individuals and specific institutions affiliated with the government," Middle East analyst Alex Kennedy said on X January 1.