• Yesterday Slovenian National Assembly unanimously adopted two reports that heavily incriminate Borut Pahor’s government (S&D) with the biggest corruption scandal in the country’s history
• Between 2008 and 2010, the biggest Slovenian bank, NLB laundered 1bn EUR for the Iranian regime. The money was mainly coming from the Export Development Bank of Iran, which was blacklisted as it was under embargo on the international markets
• Funds were laundered by transferring “smaller” sums from NLB to more than 30.000 accounts around the world. “Mickey Mouse”, “Superman”, “Anna Karennina”, and others, were among the lucky recipients of the dirty money
• While British, French, Italian and other investigating authorities, tried to investigate Slovenian money-laundering scheme, their Slovenian counterparts and the political leadership at the time, did everything they could to sweep the operation under the rug, hide it from the Slovenian public and the international institutions and enable further transactions for the Iranian regime
• According to the findings of the EU member states’ institutions and the US institutions, Iran has used Slovenian laundered money to finance: materials needed to build an atomic bomb, chemical weapons components, agents who carried out these purchases and Iranian spies infiltrated in nuclear, security and defense institutions in the EU and the US.

The biggest Slovenian corruption affair broke out in early June, when it was discovered by coincidence during the work of the parliamentary inquiry Commission for Identifying Abuses in the Banking System and the parliamentary Commission for Oversight of Intelligence and Security Services. Commission’s reports – “on proliferation, money laundering and terrorist financing in the case of Farrokhzadeh & NLB” – that heavily incriminate Government and State leadership at the time, were unanimously adopted at yesterday’s session of the Slovenian Parliament. Criminal activities, that represented and still represent a serious threat to the global security, started in 2008, just a few days after Janša’s government was replaced by the Government of Borut Pahor (S&D), and continued through 2010. During this time, Iranians and their Slovenian friends laundered 1bn EUR.
 
A proxy of the Iranian state bank, Mr Iraj Farrokhzadeh, who has officially been on the Interpol’s most-wanted list since 2006, has opened an account in NLB and transferred 1bn EUR worth of funds, from the Export Development Bank of Iran – a bank under embargo at the time. The money was then laundered by transferring “smaller” sums to more than 30.000 selected accounts in different countries around the world, including to the EU, US, Canada,Russia, etc. “Mickey Mouse”, “Superman”, “Anna Karennina”, and others, were among the lucky recipients of the dirty money.
 
According to the findings of the EU member states’ institutions and the US institutions, this scandal is a direct threat to global security, because Iran has used Slovenian laundered money to finance:

• materials needed to build an atomic bomb,
• chemical weapons components,
• agents who carried out these purchases, and
• Iranian spies infiltrated in nuclear, security and defense institutions throughout the EU and the US.

The question on everyone’s mind of course is: how is it possible that all the bank’s control mechanisms, in particular NLB and Bank of Slovenia, as well as external control institutions (Money Laundering Office, Commission for the Prevention of Corruption) and law enforcement authorities in the country (police, prosecutor's office) have failed? The fact of the matter is that all responsible authorities "abandoned due conduct" and consequently allowed or even helped to hide the criminal activities. Many people knew about the Iranian operation, but chose to remain silent. They were all rewarded, either with a promotion or by other means.
 
The latest scandal highlights a key question of personal and political responsibility of then left political figures that knew about the case as it was happening, but did nothing about it, or even enabled further transactions. Politicians who have been informed about the suspicious transactions were: Danilo Türk, President of Slovenia at the time; Borut Pahor, Prime Minister (currently the President of Slovenia); France Križanič, Minister of Finance; Katarina Kresal, Minister of Interior; Aleš Zalar, Minister of Justice, Samuel Žbogar, Minister of Foreign Affairs (currently the head of the Delegation of the EU to Macedonia). Other individuals heavily involved at the operation level of the laundering were: Janko Goršek (director of the Slovenian Police, now a promoted Police attaché, who at the time did all things necessary to stop the investigation), Aleksander Jevšek (Director of Criminal Police, now an S&D mayor), his deputy at the time Marjan Frank (now the director of the Slovenian Police, which has the task of investigating the crime), Harij Furlan (National Investigation Bureau, now head of a special prosecution team for investigation of the worst forms of criminality), Goran Klemenčič (director of the Commission for prevention of Corruption, now Minister of Justice), Darko Stare (Investigation Chief at the Commission for prevention of Corruption, now State Secretary at the Ministry of Justice) as well as Andrej Plausteiner, President of Office for Money-Laundering Prevention, who was doing the opposite of what his title demanded of him – he was enabling the money laundering operation. Almost all involved were promoted to the positions where they should now investigate themselves in the roles they had before, when they turned a blind eye on Iranian money laundering. It is also important to single out the leadership of the banking sector at that time, who were also heavily involved with Iranian activities: Marko Kranjec, Marjan Kramar, Stanka ZadravecCaprirolo, Draško Veselinovič, Matej Narat, Miran Vičič and Božo Jašovič.
 
Now the next question on everybody’s mind is: where did all the commissions on the black market go to? Expert analysis estimates that black market commissions for the nature of that type of criminality are anywhere from 30 to 50 %. With that kind of money, anyone can buy elections, media, judiciary, etc. in Slovenia.
 
Now it also became crystal clear why the ruling left, controlled by its affiliate networks, is never going to privatize the biggest Slovenian Bank. The reason being is – they are hiding several criminal operations within the bank, which they use as their personal ATM machine.
 
The so-called “crime of the century”, as its now known in Slovenia, gets zero main-stream media air time in Slovenia. As if all of the apparatus is trying to silence any kind of responsibility and protect all involved with the case.
 
The Slovenian Democratic Party will use all means for a thorough investigation to be carried out. The investigation has to determine the political and personal responsibility of the holders of public functions and, if possible, to reduce the terrorist threat which consequently exists because of this criminal act, in which some of Slovenian politicians, civil servants and bankers are involved. In spite of the undisputed, unanimously approved report of the National Assembly, none of the responsible individuals resigned, which should be the prerequisite for a successful investigation.