tl;dr
Top interrogators from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are accused of orchestrating a $21 million crypto theft during an investigation into the defunct exchange Cryptoland and its CEO, Sina Estavi. Court filings point to two senior IRGC figures, Mehdi Hajipour and Mehdi Badi, as ring...
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers have been accused of orchestrating a $21 million crypto theft from Cryptoland exchange. The investigation into the defunct exchange and its CEO, Sina Estavi, implicated two senior IRGC figures, Mehdi Hajipour and Mehdi Badi, as ringleaders. Blockchain evidence showed that Hajipour's controlled wallets processed over $21 million worth of BRG tokens. Hajipour was arrested and imprisoned, while Badi, known as "Dr. Ebadi," allegedly operated under an alias and is related to a former high-ranking IRGC official. Sina Estavi, after being accused of embezzlement, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fled Iran, leaving many investors uncompensated. This case is part of a broader pattern of crypto-related crime involving Iranian nationals.
The involvement of IRGC officers in the crypto theft is part of the IRGC’s intelligence and economic crimes unit, where tokens from the seized assets were allegedly moved into wallets they controlled and sold for personal profit under the guise of a corruption probe. Hajipour's total assets surged from $40,000 to over $14.2 million after the scheme. Additional IRGC interrogators and others were also alleged to be involved in the scheme. Badi, operating under the alias “Dr. Ebadi,” is the nephew of a former high-ranking IRGC official. Cryptoland collapsed after Estavi's arrest, leaving over 51,000 Iranians with investor complaints. Although Estavi repaid $14 million to 24,000 users, over 25,000 investors remained uncompensated. Additionally, the U.S. sanctioned Behrouz Parsarad, an Iran-based operator of the Nemesis darknet marketplace, for overseeing the sale of nearly $30 million in narcotics.