Theft of the Century: Iraq retrieves +134 billion dinars in stolen funds

Shafaq News/ Iraq's judiciary said the country had recovered more than 134 billion dinars ($92 million) as part of an investigation into a fraudulent cheques plot dubbed the "theft of the century" in which about 3.7 trillion dinars ($2.5 billion) in cash was stolen from the bank accounts of the tax authority.

The statement issued by the country's Supreme Judicial Council said that 134,455,600,000 dinars were deposited in an account at the state-owned Rafidain bank.

So far, the total amount of recovered funds have added up to 317,535,536,525 dinars, according to the statement.

The scandal was brought to public attention in early October by Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail, then the acting finance minister under Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who was forced to resign from that role in the face of parliamentary opposition to his appointment shortly afterward.

Ismail had been appointed in August after his predecessor, Ali Allawi, publicly resigned by reading out a letter in a cabinet meeting in which he complained that "extensive secret networks" had been able to "withdraw billions of dollars from the public treasury".

Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani has vowed to crack down on corruption and recover all the money stolen from the tax agency.