Ten sentences, the whole case

Iraqi companies contracting with the state prepay part of their taxes as security deposits held by the General Commission for Taxes; by 2021 these trust accounts held trillions of dinars.

Between 9 September 2021 and 11 August 2022, IQD 3.7 trillion — about USD 2.5 billion — was drained from a single trust account at Rafidain Bank.

The theft unfolded in three phases: a failed forgery attempt in mid-2021, a successful cheque circuit, and — after a governance safeguard was removed — a year of uninterrupted withdrawals.

The money went to five paper companies with a combined declared capital under IQD 20 million and no legitimate entitlement whatsoever.

The 247 cheques were signed by tax-authority officials and cleared by Rafidain Bank; the amounts were withdrawn in cash, often within a day.

A pre-audit rule imposed after a 2017 fraud attempt had blocked every earlier scheme — until it was dismantled by a coordinated chain of letters in July–August 2021.

The theft was hidden because none of the 247 cheques was ever recorded in the tax authority's own books — a gap of about IQD 3.4 trillion between the bank's ledger and the authority's.

The scheme was uncovered in October 2022 when an outgoing government commissioned an investigation that traced the cheques, the shells and the withdrawals.

Only a small fraction has been publicly recovered — IQD 182.7 billion in cash and USD 125 million as a first tranche — with the bulk of the money still missing.

Today only a handful of the accused have been sentenced — mostly in absentia — while the bank and central-bank officials who cleared the cheques have faced no charges.