Nusrat Rahimi, former spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior during the fallen republic, has made serious allegations against top officials of the fallen republic. He claims that influential figures systematically extorted tens of millions of dollars from Azizi Bank, which he says was a major factor discouraging businessman Mirwais Azizi from pursuing large-scale investments in the country at the time.
Referring to the Azizi Group’s recent investment activities in Afghanistan, Rahimi offered insight into why Mirwais Azizi had hesitated to invest in the past. He revealed that in 2019, a well-known media outlet was preparing to release a damaging report on Azizi Bank. The report allegedly contained such serious claims that, if published, it could have led to the bank’s immediate collapse, and could have inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, and triggered a major economic crisis.
To prevent the crisis, a three-member investigative team; including Rahimi himself was formed to probe the issue and block the report’s release. According to Rahimi, the information uncovered during the investigation was deeply shocking.
Without naming him directly at first, Rahimi pointed to former Vice President Amrullah Saleh, alleging that he extorted $10 million from Azizi Bank in exchange for halting the publication of the report. “It was almost unbelievable, but it was the truth,” Rahimi wrote. “The president’s signature had been fraudulently used, and a senior government figure, someone no one would have suspected was behind it. This high-ranking official acted alone, with two senior figures from the media outlet involved at a lower level. It became clear that Azizi Bank had long been under pressure, in this single case alone, $10 million was snatched from them.”
Rahimi stated that he still possesses all related evidence, both in written and audio form.
He further noted that it was precisely because of such extortion and the rampant corruption within the previous government that Mirwais Azizi had refrained from launching major investment projects at the time.
