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- Senior IRGC investigators embezzled over $21 million in crypto.
- Key perpetrators identified: Mehdi Hajipour and Mehdi Badi.
- Hajipour’s wealth grew from $40,000 to over $14.2 million in four months.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is at the center of a massive corruption scandal. Investigators from its intelligence and economic crimes unit are accused of stealing over $21 million in cryptocurrency while probing Cryptoland, a now-defunct digital exchange.
The reports suggest the officials deposited the seized funds into their own pockets, selling them for personal gains. Court documents also name Mehdi Hajipour and Mehdi Badi as the prime offenders. Blockchain data shows the wallet of Hajipour processed over $21 million worth of BRG, the native token of the platform.
His record is starkly different financially. Before the theft, he had around $40,000. Four months later, his fortune had grown to well beyond $14.2 million, which he spent on luxury real estate, gold, and luxury cars, the allegations say.
Forgery Uncovers a Wider Scheme
The scandal was revealed after a sting operation was carried out in March 2022. Hajipour was bribed with $10,000 by the CEO of Cryptoland, Sina Estavi. The CEO had thought that he was purchasing stolen tokens from a middleman. But the investigators later found out that the identity had been created by Hajipour himself.
He was then held at a facility for IRGC insiders after his arrest. He later tried appealing his conviction but was turned down in September 2022. The investigation also covered at least two other IRGC officers, Majid Jahan Parto and Majid Tabatabaei.
It is said that four other individuals also forged documents to make the transactions appear legitimate. The revelations indicate that the embezzlement was not an isolated incident but a coordinated operation by a number of officials.
Regulatory Failures in Iran’s Crypto Market
This is the largest known crypto hack attributed to Iran’s officials and is a strong indicator of corruption in Iran’s security and finance systems. The IRGC, the powerful organization controlling the country’s governance and economy, has long been accused of being involved in finance scandals.
The scandal also brings Iran’s digital asset regulation strategy into question. Crypto land was already under suspicion of being fraudulent, but the fact that investigators were part of a theft of this scale suggests underlying structural deficiencies.
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