Commander of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Khatam al-Anbiya contracting arm says they received crude oil in exchange for government debts to its companies.

Brigadier General Hossein Housh-Sadat said on Wednesday that the Khatam-al Anbiya base will sell the crude through some “organizations that are legal” without elaborating on how the IRGC would sell the oil.

He said parts of the proceeds from the oil sales would be used to settle debts to contractors and some other parts will be allocated to new projects. The IRGC business conglomerate, with its flagship Khatam al-Anbiya “base” is the largest concern in the country, receiving many government contracts without competition.

Earlier in February, the spokesman of the parliament's budget review committee, Rahim Zare’, said the IRGC base will get 20 trillion rials ($80 million) worth of crude oil to finish construction projects for the country’s prayer grounds.

The administration of President Ebrahim Raisi is giving a lot of projects to different sections of the IRGC in return for crude oil that Tehran cannot sell due to sanctions, including a $3 billion project for rice production.

The government has announced that 4.5 billion euros worth of crude oil will be put at the disposal of the armed forces to sell. This means the lion’s share will go to the IRGC, which must find middlemen and illicit ways to export the oil, giving rise to corruption.