User:Sandblaster17/Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha

Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha is a former journalist, political activist, and businesswoman who has been involved in the biggest Iranian embezzlement case (€6.6b) in Iran's national petrochemical company. She is married to Mehdi Khalaji, the Libitzky Family Fellow at the The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an advocate of economic sanctions against Iran.

Media activities
She started as a journalist in reformist newspapers in late 1990s, including covering the parliament at Hambastegi newspaper. Later in mid 2000s she directed a news agency linked to Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran, which was headed by Hamid Baghaei, a Vice President and confident to President Ahmadinejad.

Political involvement
Endorsed by the main reformist party, Islamic Iran Participation Front, she ran an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in Tehran in 1996 Iranian legislative election. In 2008, she switched sides and was endorsed by allies of the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the 2008 Iranian legislative election to no avail.

In 2014, she cofounded Idea Center for Arts and Culture LLC with her husband Mehdi Khalaji and published a web magazine, Ghalamro. The company was dissolved in 2017.

Business and corruption charges
In 2010, as the international sanctions again Iran intensified, she founded various companies in Iran and Turkey to help Iran bypass the sanctions and sell its petrochemical products.

Sheikholeslami is accused of working closely with Reza Hamzehlou, the then CEO of Iran's Petrochemical Commercial Company which was just privatised by Ahmadinejad's government, to embezzle €6.6b of petrochemical exports under the sanctions. The case is known as the biggest corruption case in Iranian history. She is charged with €7,065,529 in one case and $8,710,384 embezzlement in another by an ongoing trial in Tehran.

In another case, Sheikholeslami is accused of receiving funds from Sepanir Oil and Gas Energy Engineering Company, which is owned by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to import goods which she never delivered and escaped Iran to Canada.