PANews reported on March 31 that according to Decrypt, senior interrogators of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been accused of planning one of the country’s most audacious cryptocurrency thefts - they embezzled more than $21 million worth of cryptocurrency during an investigation into the defunct exchange Cryptoland and its CEO Sina Estavi.

The officers, who were affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard’s Intelligence and Economic Crimes Department, reportedly transferred tokens from the exchange’s seized assets to wallets they controlled, then sold the tokens for personal gain under the guise of an anti-corruption investigation. Court documents reviewed by Iran International show that two senior officials in the Revolutionary Guard’s Economic Intelligence Department, Mehdi Hajipour and Mehdi Badi, were the masterminds of the theft. Blockchain evidence in the report shows that wallets controlled by Hajipour alone processed more than $21 million worth of BRG tokens, the platform’s native token.