Iran�s Mobarakeh Steel Company (MSC), which is the largest steelmaker in the Middle East and North Africa region, is facing a $3.2 billion fraud case, according to a final report on the results of an investigation by the Iranian parliament.

The report published on Saturday showed that the MSC�s senior management team from 2018 to 2021 had been involved in numerous cases of financial wrongdoing, fraud, cronyism and influence-peddling, among other accusations.

Figures and tables published in the report showed that total losses suffered from the fraud case in the MSC over the period had amounted to more than 917 trillion rials.

The MSC is one of the largest industrial complexes in Iran, located 75 kilometers southwest of the central city of Isfahan. The company has been a major hard currency earner for the government since Iran�s oil exports came under American sanctions in 2018.

The 296-page report by the parliament claimed that MSC�s former management team had misused their close ties to senior officials in a previous administrative government that left office August last year.

It claimed that MSC�s former CEO Hamidreza Azimian, who was briefly arrested in April 2021, and his team of advisors had wasted huge amounts of money on unfulfilled or dubious contracts while also using their influences to hire relatives or close friends in the company.

A spokesman of the Iranian ministry of industries said on Saturday that the current government would ask the Iranian judiciary to be ruthless against offenders in the MSC fraud case.

MSC�s current CEO Mohammad Yaser Tabibnia said that company would not comment on the issue until judges decide the outcome of the case.

 

 

By PRESS TV