“A group of officers in one of the security agencies were exposed who embezzled amounts of 16 billion dinars,” said Mohammed Salman, president of the Karkh Criminal Court.
Rampant corruption plagues all levels of the Iraqi state. Official figures published in 2022 estimated that well over 400 billion dollars have gone missing from state coffers since former dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in 2003.
“Fighting corruption is not just talk, and the judiciary’s role begins after the crime is committed,” Salman said, adding that Iraq’s cash-based society makes it difficult to pursue corruption crimes.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said during a speech at the UN General Assembly last year that combatting corruption has been his cabinet’s foremost priority.
The country also remains riddled by the twists and turns of a massive theft of $2.5 billion from the country’s tax coffers, dubbed the “Heist of the Century.”
An investigation by the Iraqi finance ministry in October 2022 concluded that over $2.5 billion (3.7 trillion dinars) in tax funds were stolen from a bank by five companies during the tenure of former Finance Minister Ali Allawi.
Iraq ranks as the joint tenth most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International’s 2023 index.
