IRGC hoards health masks and disinfectants amid Iran’s COVID-19 crisis

Iran is suffering from a drastic shortage of medical supplies, like masks and disinfectants, because the regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is stockpiling them and selling them to the public at a major mark up.  

State-run media reports that health masks priced at 2,000 rials are being sold for thirty times more in many places across Iran. In some places, they now cost 150,000 rials. Yet still, people wait in long lines to pay big money for these essentials that are in short supply. 

Worse still, reports on social media say that the IRGC has been labeling air fresheners as disinfectant sprays and flogging them to desperate people, who are then under the impression that they will be protected. 

The regime is even selling the supplies that European countries gave to Iran as humanitarian aid, with one man on social media showing that he bought a German alcohol-based disinfectant on the black market. 

Even Iranian Health Minister Saeed Namaki admitted that the problem of hoarding masks and profiteering off them was not resolved as of March 2. 

Of course, the regime wants to appear as though they are against this horrific crime, which is why Judiciary head Ebrahim Raisi said prosecutors should “show no mercy to those who stockpile”, but in reality, the regime is doing nothing to stop or even slow the IRGC’s hoarding. All they have done is to crack down on local retailers to look like they are doing what’s right. 

https://twitter.com/HeshmatAlavi/status/1235890307008532480

The extortionate cost has forced some companies to create their masks, but the Khabar Fori website reported on March 2 that the Iranian regime has cracked down on the small operations who are doing what they can to protect people and arrested dozens for undercutting state-run companies. 

The regime is doing nothing to stop the spread of the coronavirus and everything to line their own pockets, whilst Iranians and the health workers who treat them, die from a preventable outbreak. 

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) announced that the Coronavirus death toll in 127 cities of 30 provinces has exceeded 2,600.

The number of victims in Qom is 500, Tehran 420, Gorgan 204, Kashan 142, Isfahan 121, Mashhad 205, Qazvin 98, Kermanshah 105, Gilan province 450, and Alborz95.

Even members of parliament Abdolkarim Hossein-Zadeh admitted that the regime failed to deal with the outbreak by “alerting the people…promptly”  and that this has led to a “pile of dead bodies in Qom” and the people of Rasht feeling helpless/