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Report Accuses Iran’s Quds Force of Smuggling Millions of Dollars from Iraq

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s (Reuters/File)
Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s (Reuters/File)
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Report Accuses Iran’s Quds Force of Smuggling Millions of Dollars from Iraq

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s (Reuters/File)
Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s (Reuters/File)

A report published by Iran International news channel accused on Tuesday the Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), of smuggling millions of dollars from Iraq to the Guard's accounts in Iran, in cooperation with the Iranian embassy in Baghdad.

The channel, based in London, said it has obtained information that unravels some details about the inner workings of a Quds force unit tasked with smuggling money from Iraq to Iran.

On its Twitter account, it added that the Quds Force smuggled millions of dollars from currency-exchange offices in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala and Sulaymaniyah to the accounts of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran.
“In Iraq, the network is apparently managed by an old Quds Force operative identified as Mahmoud Hasanizadeh, who oversees the job with the help of two Iraqi citizens, Maytham Hamzah Qassem Daraji and Maytham Sadiqi,” the channel said.

It also revealed that Mohammad Tajan-Jari, the financial manager of the 400th unit of IRGC’s Quds Force, was in charge of transferring the funds to the unit’s account in a branch of Ansar Bank in the capital Tehran.

The bank had been founded by the IRGC in 2010 and was officially merged into the IRGC’s official Bank Sepah.

“Tajan-Jari's executive officer in Iraq is Mostafa Pakbatan, an employee of the Iranian Embassy and a member of the Quds Force, who receives the dollars from exchange offices in Iraq,” Iran International noted.

The channel said it had obtained a financial deposit receipt for the account of Hussein Asina, a commercial activist linked to the Quds Force.

It said the information “reveals a summary of the Revolutionary Guards’ money laundering in Iraq, which drained the capital of the Iraqi market.”

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India Fires Missiles into Pakistani Territory in what Islamabad Calls 'Act of War'

A private security guard walks through rubble of a damaged building after a suspected Indian missile attack, in Muridke, a town in Pakistan's Punjab province, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
A private security guard walks through rubble of a damaged building after a suspected Indian missile attack, in Muridke, a town in Pakistan's Punjab province, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
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India Fires Missiles into Pakistani Territory in what Islamabad Calls 'Act of War'

A private security guard walks through rubble of a damaged building after a suspected Indian missile attack, in Muridke, a town in Pakistan's Punjab province, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
A private security guard walks through rubble of a damaged building after a suspected Indian missile attack, in Muridke, a town in Pakistan's Punjab province, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

India fired missiles into Pakistani-controlled territory in several locations early Wednesday, killing at least 26 people including a child, in what Pakistan's leader called an act of war.
India said it struck infrastructure used by militants linked to last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.
Pakistan claimed it shot down several Indian fighter jets in retaliation as two planes fell onto villages in India-controlled Kashmir. At least seven civilians were also killed in the region by Pakistani shelling, Indian police and medics said.
Tensions have soared between the nuclear-armed neighbors since the attack, which India has blamed Pakistan for backing. Islamabad has denied the accusation.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned Wednesday’s airstrikes and said his country would retaliate.
“Pakistan has every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given,” The Associated Press quoted Sharif as saying.

Stephane Dujarric, the United Nations spokesperson, said in a statement late Tuesday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum restraint because the world could not “afford a military confrontation” between India and Pakistan.
Indian politicians from different political parties lauded the strikes. “Victory to Mother India,” India’s defense minister, Rajnath Singh, wrote on X.
India’s main opposition Congress party called for national unity and said it was “extremely proud” of the country’s army. “We applaud their resolute resolve and courage,” Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge said.
India's army said the operation was named “Sindoor,” a Hindi word for the bright red vermillion powder worn by married Hindu women on their forehead and hair, referring to the wives who saw their husbands killed in front of them.
The missiles hit six locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in the country’s eastern Punjab province, killing at least 26 people, including women and children, said Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif.
Officials said another 38 people were injured by the strikes, and another five people were killed in Pakistan during exchanges of fire across the border later in the day.
Sharif said the Indian jets also damaged infrastructure at a dam in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, calling it a violation of international norms.
India’s Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted at least nine sites “where terrorist attacks against India have been planned.”
“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistan military facilities have been targeted,” the statement said, adding that “India has demonstrated considerable restraint."
Last month's attack on tourists was claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance.

The Indian police and medics said seven civilians were killed and 30 wounded by Pakistani shelling in Poonch district near the highly militarized Line of Control, the de facto border that divides disputed Kashmir between the two countries. Officials said several homes also were damaged in the shelling.
The Indian army said Pakistani troops “resorted to arbitrary firing,” including gunfire and artillery shelling, across the frontier.
Shortly after India’s strikes, aircraft fell onto two villages in India-controlled Kashmir.
Sharif, the Pakistani military spokesperson, said the country’s air force shot down five Indian jets in retaliation for the strikes. There was no immediate comment from India about Pakistan’s claim.