Ali Akbar Pour Ebrahim: The Heart of Iran's Billion-Dollar Oil Brokers and Trusts Corruption

Financial documents, inspection reports, and narratives about the performance of Naftiran Intertrade Company, "NICO," shed light on a part of the corruption in Iran's oil sales mechanisms. A structure where millions of barrels of oil and products are delivered to intermediaries, trusts, banks, and foreign governments, resulting in billions of dollars in overdue claims, cargo seizures, and legal disputes.

However, at least over the past four years, Ali Akbar Pour Ebrahim's name has been at the center of this case; the manager of NICO, who today speaks of the corruption of trusts, worthless collaterals, and about 11 billion dollars of oil money that is sedimented, not returned, or seized .

Putting together Pour Ebrahim's statements with NICO's documents reveals a fundamental contradiction, a network that Pour Ebrahim himself is at the heart of.

The Flight of Iran's Oil Money from the UAE to China

NICO's official and confidential response to the Oil Affairs Inspection of the General Inspection Organization in January 1403, is not just a list of debtors; it is an account of a structure where the collection of money for massive oil shipments has reached a dead end.
According to this document, the "Storia and Panorama" group, during the brokerage period between the years 1397 to 1399 received about 5.2 million tons of fuel oil and 700 thousand barrels of crude oil and then as a direct buyer until January 1402 received about 13.7 million barrels of crude oil and 2.1 million tons of additional fuel oil.

Ultimately, more than 95 million dollars from the last shipment remains unsettled. More importantly, according to the same document, the Chinese refinery as the final buyer has paid the money, but it has not reached NICO, and the case has been taken to Chinese courts.

The Nepeta Energy case also has similar conditions. This company received about 12.8 million barrels of crude oil and 88 thousand tons of fuel oil valued at over 522 million dollars, and after the seizure of a shipment worth more than 63 million dollars in the year 1399, the delivery of shipments stopped. Despite offsetting part of the claims from the guarantors, more than 37 million dollars of the principal debt and delay damages of this company remain.

These figures and dozens of other cases do not allow the matter to be simply reduced to "a few buyers' bad credit." The issue is a mechanism that has taken hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil out of the country's ownership.

From 102 Million Dollars of Petronix to London Cases

In the Petronix case, the dimensions of the matter are clear. According to NICO's documents, a shipment of one million barrels of oil was unloaded in Croatia, and the trust company sold the shipment; however, 69 million dollars of its money was blocked in an account in Belgium, and the company's debt to NICO reached 102 million dollars. This document speaks of "collusion and usurpation".

In the Orin Energy case, this company received 3.4 million barrels of products and paid 152 million dollars, but since December 1401 has refused to pay the remaining obligations. The remaining debt is reported to be about 37 million dollars, and the dispute has reached London arbitration and Chinese courts.

The repetition of this pattern is what turns NICO's managerial performance into an issue: delivery of shipments, remaining debt, and then transferring the case from commercial to legal dispute.

2.2 Billion Dollars of Oil for Pasargad Bank Brokers

The Pasargad Bank case is also one of the largest debts resulting from oil sales. According to NICO's report, in the year 1399 with the approvals of the Supreme National Security Council Secretariat and the Ministry of Oil, the credit limit of Pasargad Bank was increased to 1.5 billion euros. The bank also introduced two companies Yingtong Sihai HK and Golden Hub as brokers.

The result was the delivery of more than 29 million barrels of oil and condensates valued at 2.216 billion dollars. But by December 1403, more than 595 million dollars of the principal debt and over 172 million dollars in delay damages remained unsettled; meaning the total overdue debt of the bank and its brokers reached about 768 million dollars. Even the claim of offsetting 407 million dollars of essential goods, according to the document, has not been finalized due to the lack of obtaining legal permits.

When more than two billion dollars of shipments are entrusted to a bank and brokers introduced by it, and hundreds of millions of dollars of it remain in the claims column years later, the issue directly returns to the method of credit assessment, obtaining guarantees, and the responsibility of managers in the oil sales structure.

Venezuela; A Billion Dollar Gap Between Given and Received Oil

The Venezuela case is also one of NICO's major transactions. Documents record the value of oil and shipments sent from Iran to Venezuela along with demurrage at over 3.023 billion dollars; in contrast, the value of shipments received from Venezuela is about 2.002 billion dollars.

The result is a confirmed debt of 1.021 billion dollars of the Venezuelan Oil Company to NICO; a figure including about 986.5 million dollars of principal debt and nearly 35 million dollars in demurrage and refueling costs.

In another document about Pour Ebrahim's performance, NICO's contract with the Venezuelan company PDVSA and the exchange of crude oil, condensates, and fuel oil is criticized.

Oil transactions with Cuba are also on this list. In January 2022 about 998 thousand barrels of crude oil valued at over 112 million dollars were delivered, but according to NICO's report, more than two years later no payment has been made, and barter plans with medicine and medical equipment have not been converted into final contracts.

Efforts to Escape Partnership in 11 Billion Dollars of Missing Money

This is where Pour Ebrahim's current narrative about the corruption resulting from NICO's oil transactions becomes significant. He says that by February 1402 and based on reports from oversight bodies, about 11 billion dollars of oil sales money has sedimented in trust accounts, not returned to the country, or has been seized.

Pour Ebrahim even describes the corruption mechanism, saying a group sold oil but did not return the money; another group took the money from the final buyer and kept it in intermediary accounts, using the benefits; the third group colluded with the buyer and declared the receipt of money one or two months later to share the profit from the delay among the parties.
This narrative, rather than distancing Pour Ebrahim from the trusts' case, brings the structural performance in which he was responsible and part of it into focus.

200 Million Dollar Oil; One Million Dollar Collateral

One of the most shocking aspects of the activities of oil trusts in Iran is the guarantees that were taken. Instead of valid international collaterals, checks, promissory notes, or low-value properties were received against the delivery of shipments. For example, for a 200 million dollar oil shipment, a property worth at most one million dollars was received as collateral.

This means oil worth about 200 times the collateral was entrusted to an intermediary. Another report on the trusts' case targets exactly this point and raises the responsibility of managers who did not receive appropriate guarantees for handing over billions of dollars of oil. In such a structure, corruption is not just the moment of seizing money; the mechanism that allows public assets to be entrusted to an intermediary with minimal guarantees creates the same corruption bed.

Trusts with Rolls-Royce and Penthouses

Another part of the trusts' narrative with Pour Ebrahimi's management and similar individuals in the Ministry of Oil and its managers includes basement companies in the UAE registered in the name of unqualified individuals or foreign nationals; individuals who have driven Rolls-Royces with Iran's oil money, own expensive penthouses, and even lend the same Iranian oil dollars back to the Iranian government.

At the same time, in Pour Ebrahim's documents, the accused is also mentioned in receiving amounts while operating in Switzerland. In one report regarding the NICO CEO's salary, his monthly income is stated to be about 15 thousand Swiss francs.

While Pour Ebrahim claims to have opposed Babak Zanjani's return to the oil sales cycle and that this opposition was one of the factors leading to his removal from the Ministry of Oil, he has not explained how he handed over oil to the Shamkhanis, sons of security figures, Rouhollah Razavi, Mohammad Hadi Momenin, and others.

Pour Ebrahim's case is the story of a manager who exposed the corruption of trusts; while he himself is part of a large network of trusts and brokerage responsible for more than 100 billion dollars of disappeared oil and oil-related products. Pour Ebrahim is a manager within the system of extortion and oil brokerage in Iran, who has organized intense competition for the complete monopoly of exports with the support of security and oversight agencies up to the Ministry of Oil, the government, and the parliament.