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Iraq announces recovery of a second block of funds embezzled in 'theft of the century'

MADRID, 11 Dic.

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Iraq announces recovery of a second block of funds embezzled in 'theft of the century'

MADRID, 11 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Prime Minister of Iraq, Mohamed Shia al Sudani, announced this Sunday the recovery of a second block of embezzled funds linked to what the Iraqi authorities have described as 'the robbery of the century'.

Al Sudani's office has indicated in a statement on its website that "the integrity authorities continue to recover stolen money from the tax fund," an operation carried out "under the close supervision of the prime minister and in cooperation with the Supreme Judicial Council." .

"As the prime minister promised in his statements on November 27, a second part of the stolen money has been recovered," he said, before detailing that the sum amounts to more than 134,000 million Iraqi dinars (about 87.2 million euros) that have been deposited in an account at the Rafidain Bank.

In this way, the recovered funds amount to more than 317,000 million dinars (about 206.3 million euros). "Efforts to recover stolen money and pursue wanted persons continue under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister, in line with the government's program, which places the fight against corruption as its top priority," he added.

The theft of funds was announced in October by the Minister for Petroleum, Ihsan Abdulyabar, who explained that an investigation by the Ministry of Finance, the ministry he directed until his resignation this week, had revealed that "a specific group", without giving details, it had been made with 3.7 trillion Iraqi dinars (about 2.5 billion euros) in a fund of the national tax authority in the Rafidain Bank.

After that, the Ministry of Finance issued an extensive statement detailing the scandal and confirming the arrest of some of the accused officials, while the General Tax Commission confirmed that it had ordered the seizure of the assets of five of its senior officials involved in the case. .

The Rafidain Bank, the largest bank in Iraq, with 165 branches within Iraq and offices in Cairo, Beirut, or Abu Dhabi, has assured that it has nothing to do with the theft of this amount, collected between September 2021 and August 2022, during Ali Alawi's tenure as the country's Finance Minister.

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