The indictment against six unidentified persons accused in the “missing oil rigs’” case has been issued, Tehran’s Prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced on Monday, August 7.

“The case of the missing oil rigs that has been at the top of the news for the past two years, is one of the most serious cases of financial crimes filed in the Justice department,” Dolatabadi asserted, adding, “We have asked the court to try and punish the suspects related to the case.”

The local media, for more than two years, have focused on the case of “missing oil rigs”, when it was revealed that at least one oil drilling rig bought by Iran has never been delivered and has been practically gone “missing” since 2011.

Iran Marine Facilities company (a subdivision of the Oil Ministry) bought two oil drilling rigs during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency that have never been delivered to Iran, MPs disclosed in 2015.

But already in October 2014, fourteen MPs had written a letter to the Speaker of parliament asking him to look into the case of a missing oil rig, named as “Fortuna”.

According to Fars, a news website close to Islamic Revolution Guardians Corps, IRGC, the oil rig was sold for $87 million to Iran through Dean, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, but it was not delivered to Iran and, instead, it was directly taken to the Gulf of Mexico.

“The rig cost $67 million but the Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Co, IOEC, approved a payment of $87 million on the grounds that the extra money was needed to bypass the sanctions” Reuters quoted a source on September 4, 2015.