Iran’s lost billions: Tejarat Aria Gostar Iranian Navid Co may have questions to

Iran’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh accused the previous Iran government officials of handing out oil and loans to businessmen without any repayment demand or schedule.

Zanganeh says $2.7 billion are missing from official coffers, and he has no prospect or reclaiming this money. The oil was sold by businessmen, in particular billionaire Babak Zanjani, against sanctions imposed by the US and the EU, and the businessmen were allowed to keep all of the revenue, despite the desperate situation of a country’s civilian population that has suffered under sanctions for decades.

Zanjani is accused of owing the state of Iran $2 billion – that still leaves $700 million unaccounted for. One company that could move into the spotlight of the investigation is Tejarat Aria Gostar Iranian Navid Co. The company was founded by Hassan Afrashtehpour, Mohammadreza Aghaei, and Yousef Zarei Nikjeh in May 2011, six days after the EU passed its sanctions against Iran. While the company is officially trading in food commodities such as sugar, it is understood the company illegally imports weapons and deals in petroleum-related activities.

In particular Afrashtehpour and his brother Davoud have a long history of corruption with the blessing of the regime. In 1997 the brothers were sentenced to 20 years in prison for embezzling dozens of billions of US dollars from the Iranian State bank Saderat. Local media reported that the scandal may have been linked the wider scandals of Sharham Jazarezi-Arab, an Iranian entrepreneur and businessman involved in a high-profile corruption case with several officials. The brothers never served their prison sentence, which was seen as a sign of being shielded from within the regime.

In 2006, Hassan Afrashtehpour ran into similar trouble, when he was involved in a money embezzlement and corruption scandal. He apparently received $60 million from the state to import good into Iran against the sanctions.

The Afrashtehpour are clearly at the heart of the corrupt net between businessmen and government officials, but they are not the only ones. Tejarat Aria Gostar Iranian Navid Co was founded not only with full government backing – just note the timing of incorporation so swiftly after the EU sanctions – two other businessmen entered the spotlight: Mohammadreza Aghaei, and Yousef Zarei Nikjeh. Their connections to the company are nebulous. While they are known to be founding partners, they do not appear on the company papers as stakeholders.

The company’s address is in the same building as a number of other firms held by the Afrashtehpour brothers, most of which deal –officially - with food commodities but also in oil interests. If Bijan Zanganeh wants to find the missing $700 million his predecessors gave out to allied businessmen to bust international sanctions, this would be a good address to start.