The Ministry of Justice announces the amount of recovered funds, real estate, bank accounts, and cooperating countries.
The Ministry of Justice announces the amount of recovered funds, real estate, bank accounts, and cooperating countries.
7-4-2026
The Ministry of Justice announced on Saturday the recovery of more than $25 million of looted Iraqi funds over the past two years. While indicating that there are legal actions underway in five countries to recover smuggled real estate and bank accounts, it confirmed winning international legal battles and the lifting of millions of dollars in asset freezes. Ministry spokesman Ahmed Laibi told the official news agency that “work is being carried out in coordination with the Federal Integrity Commission to recover looted Iraqi funds abroad through legal and judicial channels based on international agreements,” noting that “the recovery process goes through complex stages that may take years.”
Laibi explained that “the recovery mechanism is based on the United Nations Convention against Corruption and bilateral memoranda of understanding,” indicating that “files are referred from the Federal Integrity Commission after the completion of seizure procedures, after which coordination is made with the affected parties and the ministry is provided with the legal requirements, foremost among them the final judicial decisions.”
He added that “the procedures include filing lawsuits to enforce the judgments issued by Iraqi courts in the countries concerned, and then executing them on movable and immovable assets and returning them to Iraq,” noting that “the legal follow-up is carried out through appointed lawyers outside the country, while diplomatic coordination is outside the jurisdiction of the ministry, and the most prominent countries with which work is being carried out include Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Bulgaria and the Sultanate of Oman.”
Laibi also pointed out that “one of the most prominent cases that was decided in favor of Iraq is the lawsuit of the Trust for International Trade Foundation, which was filed in 2010 before the Jordanian courts to claim the amount of $53 million on the basis of barter contracts with companies affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Minerals,” explaining that “the court issued a ruling in 2015 obligating the ministry and the Iraqi government jointly to pay the amount with interest.”
He explained that “subsequent procedures saw the cancellation of all reservations that affected Iraq’s funds in Jordan and the implementation of the decision was considered as if it had never happened,” adding that “the institution filed a lawsuit before the American courts, but the American judiciary rejected the lawsuit based on the principle of sovereign immunity, and the Court of Appeal upheld the decision so that the ruling became final in favor of Iraq.”
Laibi confirmed that “Iraq was able during the years 2025 and 2026 to recover more than $3 million deposited in the account of the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Beirut, which is part of the embezzled funds of the Baghdad Municipality that were frozen in Lebanese banks. There are also judicial decisions issued in favor of Iraq, including the recovery of more than 332 million dinars from a former director of the Stock and Bond Exchange Authority, as well as the recovery of $20 billion, four hundred and eighty-seven million, three hundred and eight thousand dollars for the benefit of the Iraqi Trade Bank after the Iraqi judgment was given the executive form in Lebanon.” He continued, “Another decision was issued to recover more than $1 billion and 706 million from a fugitive convict in Jordan, with the enforcement procedures on his frozen funds continuing.” He pointed out that “the recovery period usually ranges between two and seven years for a single case due to the complexities of legal proof and the differences in legislation.”
The spokesperson also pointed out that “the most prominent challenges are the need to prove the crime of corruption with a final judicial ruling within Iraq, in addition to the requirement by some countries of the existence of bilateral agreements or detailed final rulings for cooperation,” indicating that “there are technical challenges related to disguising funds in the names of fictitious companies or other persons.”
He explained that “tracking and tracing funds falls within the jurisdiction of the Integrity Commission, while the role of the Ministry of Justice begins after the funds have been identified and officially seized. The legal procedures go through two stages, starting with appointing a foreign lawyer to file a lawsuit to give the Iraqi judgments an executive form, and ending with following up on the implementation and transferring the recovered funds to the state treasury in accordance with the applicable laws,” noting that “some files, including those related to the Dawn Charge operations, are still under investigation before the judicial authorities.”
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