Judiciary seizes properties worth 69 billion dinars in oil corruption case

The Nineveh Investigative Court issued judicial decisions to seize nine commercial properties and three flour mills in Mosul, with a total value reaching 69 billion Iraqi dinars.

The seized assets belong to Adnan al-Jumaili, Deputy Minister of Oil for Liquidation Affairs, who is accused along with others of money laundering and financial corruption crimes; the value of the commercial properties in the city center is about 45 billion dinars, while the flour mills were estimated at 24 billion dinars, in addition to seven modern transport trucks valued at 200,000 dollars each.

The court clarified that the defendants registered these assets under the names of their workers to conceal their illicit origin, raising questions about oversight mechanisms for public property registration and the involvement of other parties in concealment operations.

The court affirmed that the properties and mills are productive and generate continuous revenue, thus deciding to appoint judicial guards to manage them, ensure their continued operation, and collect their financial returns.

Legal proceedings are still underway to pursue the fugitive defendants, as part of efforts to track suspicious assets and protect public funds, but the lack of details on mechanisms for recovering the seized funds raises concerns about the effectiveness of implementation.

The background of the case indicates that this step is part of a series of judicial measures to combat corruption in state institutions, where charges of money laundering and financial corruption have previously been brought against several former and current officials, but the final outcomes of these lawsuits remain unclear to citizens.