In Iran, massive corruption and mismanagement have been cited as important contributors to poor economic conditions at the end of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's eight years in office. Since Ahmadinejad left office — and even before — news emerged on the scale of corruption during his two terms. The barrier to openly speak about it broke in 2011, when it became public that some $2.6 billion had been embezzled by a network of banks, led by state-owned Bank Melli, in which the chief culprit — the bank's former Managing Director Mohammad Reza Khavari — fled to Canada and escaped persecution.  

Ahmadinejad supporters argue that corruption and mismanagement have always existed in Iran and that it was not unique to the previous administration. While true to some extent, the volume of corruption that exploded during the Ahmadinejad years is notable. In the words of one Iranian analyst, “under-the-table corruption” has turned into “over-the-table corruption” in the past few years.

In order to understand the nature of corruption and the role political figures play in it, one can take a closer look at the case of Saeed Mortazavi, the former managing director of the Social Security Organization (SSO).

Mortazavi has always been a controversial figure in Iran, especially in his role as a judge in the “special court for the press.”  He emerged in 1999 as the judge for the mentioned branch, where he ordered the closure of 120 newspapers and magazines, and sent many journalists to prison. In 2003 he became Tehran's attorney general. Under his watch, a Canadian-Iranian journalist, Zahra Kazemi, died during interrogation. The Ministry of Intelligence's investigation suggested that, in Kazemi's case, the accusation against two interrogators by the attorney general was "misleading."