An insider economist admits that Iran’s ruling system has become a cross-faction enterprise designed to loot public wealth and crush citizens’ rights.
When an economist long aligned with the ruling establishment openly acknowledges that Iran’s political system functions as a cross-faction corporation designed to loot national wealth, the confession is impossible to ignore.
Saeed Laylaz, a figure with deep ties to government institutions, has admitted that the structure built by Khomeini and expanded under Ali Khamenei has shown “not a shred of mercy” toward the Iranian people in its decades of systematic plunder.
In an interview with Majid Tafreshi, the historian and documentary researcher, Laylaz characterized the regime as a “suprapartisan joint-stock company for looting public assets,” revealing the depth of corruption embedded at the core of state power.
Laylaz’s remarks carry unusual weight because they come from someone who once defended aspects of the system. His statements expose a ruling elite united not by ideology but by the shared benefits of extracting wealth from the nation.
He describes a political machine in which both conservatives and reformists are complicit, pointing to the disappearance of $100 billion under the pretext of maintaining the national currency and the destruction of 200 tons of gold.
These figures reflect not merely financial mismanagement but the deliberate siphoning of public resources into the hands of the few.
The economist emphasizes that this plunder is not accidental or confined to a particular period. It has become the operating logic of the dictatorship. Even during the Rouhani administration, which Laylaz previously supported, massive corruption took place through large foreign-currency loans handed to insiders.
Borrowers repaid their debts at outdated exchange rates while hyperinflation above 100 percent crushed ordinary citizens. Expert assessments describe this as one of the largest waves of corruption in the past two decades, yet the regime not only failed to confront it but facilitated and protected it, treating it as a mechanism for political survival.
Privatization further deepened the crisis. What was presented as the transfer of public assets to increase efficiency instead became a pipeline funneling vast opportunities to regime loyalists.
Factories, mines, and critical industries were handed over to networks tied to the security and clerical establishment. Instead of growth and employment, the result was widespread bankruptcy, layoffs, and the collapse of the middle class. Laylaz himself acknowledges that these policies have pushed roughly half of the population into poverty.
The consequences extend far beyond the economy. Organized plunder has become inseparable from human rights violations.
A regime that diverts public wealth into security agencies inevitably uses those resources to suppress dissent. Economic grievances that should be addressed through policy are instead met with batons, prisons, and bullets.
Laylaz warns that distrust in government has reached a breaking point, and that the people are approaching an explosive threshold caused by decades of theft and repression.
From a rights-based perspective, the regime’s behavior violates the fundamental principle that national resources belong to all citizens. Oil, gas, minerals, and industrial assets have been absorbed into the pockets of military-controlled conglomerates and clerical foundations.
Their enrichment has come at the cost of millions of unemployed youth, mass migration of skilled workers, and the disintegration of families under the weight of economic collapse. Instead of accountability, the system has built prisons for critics and shielded the corrupt from scrutiny.
International indices reinforce this bleak assessment. Organizations such as Transparency International consistently place Iran among the most corrupt countries in the world.
Laylaz notes that systematic plunder has cut the country’s GDP by an estimated fifteen percent, eroding both development and hope. His warning about the impossibility of regime stability without rebuilding trust reflects a rare admission from within the establishment.
Despite his affiliation with the system, Laylaz’s confession inadvertently crystallizes a truth long known to Iranians: the ruling elite has become a business venture structured around extraction, not governance.
His words offer a powerful opening for further exposure and public mobilization. As economic suffering deepens, society’s demands for accountability are gaining strength, transforming frustration into collective determination.
Iran’s future lies with a population that has grown unwilling to tolerate the relentless plunder carried out in its name.
