The documents obtained by Chalabi’s investigators reveal a pattern of suspicious dollar orders by UBI and its clients across one month in 2012.
The documents comprise packets of files which UBI submitted to the central bank to apply for dollars, ostensibly on behalf of Iraqi traders. They include invoices, customs documents, certificates of origin, tax forms, and import licenses meant to demonstrate that those traders imported real goods into Iraq.
OCCRP reviewed the application packets and found indicators of fraud — including mismatched and missing documents — in all but one request for dollars. In every one of these applications, the sums UBI obtained were not wired back to the ostensible exporters who invoiced for the goods, but were instead divided up in different denominations and sent to individuals and accounts across the region.
For instance, on April 29, 2012, an Iraqi company called Basma Al Furat submitted an application through UBI for $24 million, and included invoices saying it had imported 21,000 tons of reinforcing deformed steel bars and 8,800 air conditioners into Iraq from a company based in Ajman in the United Arab Emirates.
But when reporters went to the UAE registry to look for the supplier — the oddly named “Al Auqab Emport & Export” — they found no trace. The files seen by OCCRP also showed no sign of customs documents or import licenses indicating that any steel or air conditioners had actually reached Iraq.
The $24 million, which was wired regardless, didn’t even go back to the UAE. Instead, the money was sent to Jordan, where it was divided between four exchange houses. Out of the cash, $1 million went directly to UBI’s chairman, Fadhil al-Dabbas. A Jordan-based trading company co-owned by one of his brothers, Ali al-Dabbas, received $4.5 million. None of the final sums matched the amounts requested on the invoices.
OCCRP also found multiple connections to the well-known Iraqi businessman Hassan Nasser Jaafar al-Lami in multiple stages of the applications — sometimes with the companies and people applying for dollars, and sometimes with those receiving the funds.
Basma Al Furat, for instance, was owned by Hassan Hadi Farhan, who is a partner of Lami in a Baghdad-based consultancy. On April 30, Farhan also personally requested $8.3 million to import 487,840 automobile spare parts.
In the same application, another trader named Hayder Jawad Hassan, who is also a partner in the same consultancy, asked for $20.6 million to import 25,000 tons of sugar. Hassan and Lami both also hold just under 10 percent of shares each in Iraqi Noor Islamic Bank, which was kicked out of the dollar auction at the Federal Reserve’s request in late 2019.
The files seen by OCCRP contained no customs documents for the car parts, which were ostensibly provided by Ajyal Import & Export — described as an exporter in Ras Al-Khaimah in the UAE, but which, again, does not appear in the company registry.
They did supply customs clearances for roughly 26,000 tons of sugar, but the invoices and customs documents did not match: they listed different countries of origin, different delivery ships, and a different total price. The payments, again, were made not to the UAE but to five exchange houses in Jordan.
The same pattern held across all thirteen of UBI’s applications for dollars in April 2012. At least 20 out of the 38 total invoices come from Al Auqab and Ajyal Import & Export, neither of which show up in the UAE registry. In eight applications, the documents seen by OCCRP lack customs forms for certain imports. In three more, the declared origin of the goods listed on Iraqi customs declarations differed from the origin of the goods on the invoices.
It is possible that these customs documents may have represented real, if far smaller amounts of goods with some connection to UBI’s applications. But, with one exception, the dollars obtained by UBI didn’t go where they should have. None appeared to be wired into the corporate coffers of Dubai sugar brokers or steel suppliers.
At least $11 million went directly to Dabbas and to the trading company owned by his brother. Other recipients included an individual in Turkey, unspecified accounts in Jordan, and Dubai-based trading companies. Nearly $860,000 went to a Chinese bus manufacturer.
None of it, except a $1 million wire to Lebanon for an order of household appliances, appeared to correspond to real goods that were invoiced and sent to Iraq’s borders.
Dabbas, Lami, Farhan, Hassan, UBI, and Iraqi Noor Islamic Bank did not respond to requests for comment.
Another $28 million of the funds UBI requested were transferred to a company that the U.S. says handled funds for Sa’id Ahmad Muhammad al-Jamal, an Iran-based financier sanctioned for allegedly providing “tens of millions of dollars’ worth of funds to the Houthis” through a network of front companies across the Middle East. Repeated efforts to reach Jamal for comment through his companies were unsuccessful.
UBI, which did not respond to requests for comment, was never barred from the dollar auction. But in 2018, it was put under the guardianship of Iraq’s central bank for “failure to meet financial obligations.” Central bank data shows that it continued to apply for, and receive, dollars as late as 2020.
Shortly after he wrote his letter, Chalabi died on his farm at the age of 71. There is no indication that his findings led to any serious action against dollar auction fraud.
Entifadh Qanbar, a former spokesperson for Chalabi, pointed out that the former exile’s toxic reputation among U.S. officials may have dissuaded them from looking into his findings. The Iraqi National Council, which Chalabi founded, had funneled information to U.S. authorities that was used to justify the invasion — and much of which was later shown to be bogus.
“They think he was a destabilizer,” Qanbar told OCCRP. “They just don’t want to touch anything Chalabi did or said.”
Additional reporting by Henry Pope.
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