IRAQ DOLLAR CORRUPTION
العربية
An evidence file · ملف أدلة — 2004–2026

For more than 8,200 days, the Central Bank of Iraq's dollar auction — the foreign currency selling window — has sold the nation's oil dollars at a preferential rate to a closed circle of banks. More than $616 billion verified sold. At least $23.8 billion — likely near $29 billion — captured in the gap between the official rate and the market rate.

United States authorities have repeatedly tied participants in this mechanism to sanctioned banks and Iran-linked financial networks; its cost has been carried, every day, by the Iraqi public. The enforcement record

The Central Bank's own name for the mechanism is نافذة بيع العملة الأجنبية — the foreign currency selling window. It is publicly known as the CBI dollar auction: مزاد العملة, مزاد الدولار.

$515bn+

verified dollars sold at the window since 2004 — $515.0bn from recovered daily records plus $101.3bn from the CBI's own published annual totals

Tier A
1,743

per-bank ledger rows recovered from the CBI's own session bulletins

Tier A
$23.8bn+

documented margin captured between the window rate and the market rate since 2004 — approximately $28.8bn scaled to the verified annual volumes [estimate]

Tier A

Daily figures have been recovered for 3,787 of the 8,240 days in the series; adding the CBI's own published annual totals brings the verified window figure to $616.3bn. The true total is higher still: 2018, 2020 and 2025 remain under-recovered. Tier A

The verified figure decomposes as $515.0bn from recovered daily records [Tier A] plus $101.3bn from the CBI's own published annual totals [Tier A] = $616.3bn. The margin: at least $23.8bn documented [Tier A]; approximately $28.8bn when the documented daily margin is scaled to the verified annual volumes [Tier B].

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The mechanism

Iraq sells its oil through SOMO and is paid in dollars into an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Ministry of Finance sells those dollars to the Central Bank of Iraq, which resells them each working day to a limited set of licensed banks at an official rate. Outside that window, the market pays more. The difference between the two prices is captured at the moment of purchase, and it is captured by whoever holds an allocation.

Repeated daily for two decades, that difference has functioned as a private levy on a public resource. Ali Allawi, finance minister until 2022, put the wider extraction from the state budget at 25 to 30 per cent; that estimate is attributed to him and is never mixed with the arithmetic on this site. This file assembles the Central Bank's own published record of the mechanism: what was sold, at what rate, and to whom.

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The chain, in five stages

Iraq's wealth leaks at five distinct stages between the wellhead and the citizen. This file documents the two at the centre of the chain.

  1. 01Before exportCrude and refined product diverted before or at the point of sale.Read the chapter
  2. 02Between sale and Central BankOil dollars in New York accounts, moved with weak control.Read the chapter
  3. 03The currency windowDollars bought at the official rate, sold at the market rate.Read the chapter
  4. 04Inside the budgetGhost payrolls, inflated contracts, allocations by party.Read the chapter
  5. 05The citizen's counterThe retail end: payments demanded for ordinary public services.Read the chapter

The window sold most heavily in the years oil prices peaked

Annual dollars sold at the auction (left, US$ billions) and average parallel-market premium (right, %) · 2004–2025

Source: Central Bank of Iraq, session bulletinsTier A
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Contents

Twelve chapters. Each states its sources and its tier at the point of claim.

  1. 01The SystemHow an oil dollar reaches a Baghdad bank counter, and where the circuit is exposed.
  2. 02The PoolIraq's oil revenue, month by month — the single source every later diversion draws on.
  3. 03Where the Oil Money WentThe pool accounted for, level by level — and the $765.9bn the state has never itemised.
  4. 04The WindowThe mechanics of the daily sale, and the full record of what was sold, day by day.
  5. 05The MarginThe distance between the official rate and the street, measured across twenty-two years.
  6. 06The LedgerSixty-three sessions the Central Bank published in full, bank by bank.
  7. 07The Five StagesWhere public revenue is lost between the wellhead and the citizen.
  8. 08The Central Bank's BooksAudited assets and gross foreign holdings, as far as the record has been recovered.
  9. 09EnforcementWhat the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury did, and to which banks.
  10. 10The CostTwo instruments for translating the documented margin into household terms.
  11. 11Methodology & DataEvery calculation, every tier, every open item, and the complete dataset.
  12. 12The ArchiveThe register of Central Bank documents underpinning the file, with independent copies where they exist.