The Story Of The Suspicious Dollar Transfer.” An American Newspaper Interviews Ali Ghulam At His Palace In London, “Near The American Embassy.”
Policy 2024-09-09 | 7,321 views Alsumaria News-Politics A Wall Street Journal report revealed the extent of Ali Ghulam’s influence on the dollar crisis in Iraq, as he was the reason for the American side imposing strict control on dollar transfers from Iraq, while
Ghulam was described as “the undisputed king of the dollar in Iraq for a decade.”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard was financed with dollars using suspicious import receipts, which is denied by Gholam, who lives in his mansion in London near the residence of the American ambassador to Britain.
The newspaper pointed out that the American side was aware of these problems since 2012, but did not want to plunge Iraq into an economic crisis.
The newspaper said in an article translated by Al Sumerian, that Ali Ghulam was the undisputed king of the dollar in Iraq for nearly a decade, and
his three banks in Baghdad transferred tens of billions of dollars at that time outside the country, ostensibly to buy car parts, furniture and other imports, indicating
He was one of the most senior workers in the ad hoc banking system that was established nearly two decades ago under the American occupation and that gave the Federal Reserve Bank of New York a key role in processing Iraq's international transactions. She noted that
years later, when the Federal Reserve finally began to look more closely at where the money was going, it closed it almost overnight, as
American officials suspected that its banks were among more than two dozen Iraqi banks involved in transferring dollars to Iran and its allies., using front companies and false invoices to circumvent sanctions that prevent Iran from accessing the global financial system.
The newspaper reported that audits of Gholam's banks, which were completed in May, revealed unusual details of dollar transactions abroad, which auditors said raised concerns about money laundering. Gholam denied these allegations in interviews.
The newspaper explains that among Iraqi banks in general, it was not possible to trace up to 80% of the bank transfers worth more than $250 million that flow through them on some days, and part of this amount went secretly to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The crackdown on Iraqi banks began in late 2022 after more than a decade of US inaction, even after the Pentagon's inspector general warned as far back as 2012 of the potential for fraud worth $800 million a week.
Current and former US officials said the US had imposed... Over the years, it has imposed temporary restrictions on cash flows to Iraq, but fears that strict or permanent controls will plunge Iraq into economic chaos and setback its battle against ISIS.
Ghulam, 42, now based in London, ran an empire that handled the lion's share of dollars transferred outside Iraq, on some days as much as 20 percent of wire transfers, he and Iraqi banking officials said.
Its banks - Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank, Al Ansari Islamic Bank, and Islamic Holding Bank - were the first to be banned from dollar transactions by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department in late 2022.
He was suspended from work due to the large volume of suspicious transactions, and no action was taken against Ghulam personally.
Gholam denied that his banks knowingly sent money to the Quds Force or the Iranian government. He said:
"The Americans have nothing against me.
I have nothing to do with money laundering or Iran."
He said that his life in London, where he and his family live after moving from Baghdad in 2018, has been turned upside down since the loss of the US dollar.
His $40 million home, which was recently renovated with shiny marble floors, a swimming pool in the basement and a parrot cage, is located Just a few blocks from the US ambassador's residence, after a walk, he often heads to his favorite London restaurants in his Rolls-Royce SUV.
“The system is bad, but every bank in Iraq was operating under the same system,” Ghulam said. The Americans came up with this system?
Since the ban on Gholam's banks, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve have been pressing for more sweeping changes in Iraq.
The United States has banned more than two dozen other Iraqi banks from conducting transactions in dollars.
Strict new rules imposed by the Central Bank of Iraq since late 2022 under American pressure require banks to disclose the final recipients of bank transfers.
The New York Federal Reserve Bank at that time began carefully monitoring wire transfers from Iraq's official accounts, rejecting any transfers that did not comply with standard procedures for transferring international funds, officials said.