Economy of Plunder: How the IRGC Turns the Iranian People’s Empty Table into a Missile and Drone Budget

 

By: Kazem Nouri – Regional Security Expert, Researcher of Social Movements in Iran and Iraq and Human Rights Activist

Overview:
This article examines the structure of the economy of plunder in Iran; an economy in which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not a military institution, but the largest economic-security cartel in the Middle East. Based on documents from the Iranian Resistance and international reports, we show how the empty table of the Iranian people is directly turned into a budget for missiles, drones and foreign terrorism, and why this economic model itself is the engine of future uprisings.

1. Shocking Statistics: The IRGC’s Economic Empire

According to documented reports by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), today more than 60% of Iran’s economy is directly or indirectly controlled by the IRGC. This empire is run through the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters – which swallows the largest oil, gas, dam and road projects without any tender – and dozens of front holdings such as the IRGC Cooperative Foundation, the Mostazafan Foundation and the Executive Headquarters of Khomeini’s Order.

While the regime’s Statistics Center announces food inflation at 45%, field reports from the Resistance indicate real inflation of over 80% in table items. At the same time, the regime’s overt military budget in 2025-2026 has increased by more than 15 billion dollars. These numbers clearly show an equation of plunder: every rial from the people’s pocket is a bullet for the regime’s survival.

Organized oil smuggling, smuggling of goods from invisible piers that even the regime’s customs cannot access, and the monopoly on imports of animal feed and medicine are the three pillars of this underground economy.

2. Plunder as a Strategic Weapon Against Livelihood

For the IRGC, the economy is a weapon, exactly like execution. A regime that has lost its legitimacy cannot survive with a healthy economy, but with a rentier and sanctions-evading economy.

The mechanism is simple: the IRGC, under the pretext of “resistance economy,” sells oil at a 30% discount to Chinese intermediaries, the dollar proceeds go not to the Central Bank, but to the IRGC’s financial network – the Quds Force. Then these same dollars are spent on producing Shahed-136 drones, precision ballistic missiles and financing proxy militias in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.

Inside, the same network hoards basic goods and creates artificial shortages, raises prices and injects the windfall profit back into the cycle of repression. When truck drivers strike because tires and diesel are unavailable, they are actually confronting this very IRGC mafia. This is the economy of dictatorship survival, not a national economy.

3. Exploiting Appeasement and the International Black Market

The IRGC makes the most of two vacuums: first, the silence and appeasement of the West, which under the pretext of “diplomacy” turns a blind eye to the IRGC’s oil smuggling, and second, the global black market.

Although the US Treasury has sanctioned dozens of IRGC front companies, these sanctions are circumvented as long as Chinese ports, front companies in the UAE and Turkey, and Iraqi banks are open to the IRGC. A Reuters report in 2024 showed that only one IRGC oil smuggling network earned $1.2 billion in one year.

This money never returns to Iran’s treasury, but is directly deposited into the budget of Khamenei’s office and the Quds Force. The Western world, by buying the IRGC’s cheap smuggled oil, unintentionally finances the gallows and the missile for the same regime.

4. The Solution: From Smart Sanctions to Isolation and Financial Auditing

The solution is to move beyond blind and ineffective sanctions. We believe that:

A) Smart and Targeted Sanctions: The IRGC as a whole – not just its commanders – must be placed on the EU Terror List. All its affiliated economic holdings, including Khatam al-Anbiya and the Cooperative Foundation, must be subject to secondary sanctions and any transaction with them must be punishable.

B) Conditionality and Transparency: Any economic transaction, release of blocked funds and diplomatic relations must be conditional on two conditions: first, the complete exit of the IRGC from Iran’s economy and second, an international audit of the assets of Khamenei’s office and the Executive Headquarters. The money of the Iranian people should not be spent on drones that kill civilians in Ukraine.

In a word, we must hit the IRGC’s pocket to remove its hand from the trigger.

5. Economic Deadlock and Resistance Against the Empty Table

The regime is trapped in the economy of plunder. It cannot remove the IRGC from the economy, because its backbone of repression will collapse, and it cannot keep it, because every day the people’s table becomes emptier and social anger more explosive.

Resistance against this plunder has today become a widespread movement:

1- The transformation of the slogans “Where is our table?” and “Death to Khamenei” into interconnected slogans in protests by workers, retirees, nurses and farmers in Isfahan.

2- Nationwide strikes by truck drivers, bazaaris and farmers that directly target the IRGC monopoly.

3- Flight of human capital and internal boycott of IRGC-affiliated goods by youth.

The regime miscalculates the extent of society’s economic tolerance. As we saw in the December 2017 uprising, when the table becomes empty, the fear of the gallows also disappears.

Conclusion:

It is true that with continuous political work, the world must be forced to sanction the IRGC, but based on the Persian proverb “When water goes over the head, whether one cubit or a hundred cubits” – which in English is “In for a penny, in for a pound” or “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb” meaning “When the deed is done, fear has no meaning” – it is the Iranian people themselves who will turn this economy of plunder against itself.

The resistance of the rebellious hubs in exposing smuggling piers, the steadfastness of bazaaris against IRGC extortion, and the reflection of this plunder in international media, paves the way for a radical socio-economic uprising.

Yes, the Iranian people are preparing for an uprising that will not only sweep the IRGC from Iran’s economy, but will also institutionalize transparency, economic justice and “No to Plunder” in the constitution of their future democratic state.

Footnotes and documented statistics from Iranian Resistance sources:
1- “60% of Iran’s economy in the hands of the IRGC” – Report by the Security and Anti-Terrorism Commission of the National Council of Resistance of Iran – 2024
2- “$1.2 billion revenue of IRGC oil smuggling network” – Reuters and NCRI report – September 2024
3- “Military budget increased by $15 billion while basic goods budget decreased by 40%” – 2025 Budget
4- “Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters holds more than 3400 large national projects without tender”

Kazem Nouri
Regional security expert

Bio:
Kazem Nouri
Regional security expert, researcher of social movements in Iran and Iraq, and human rights activist. For over two decades, he has written on political and social developments in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. His expertise is examining the role of the IRGC and proxy groups in regional destabilization and supporting the organized resistance of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy