Iran International
Petty thefts of basic food items are becoming a symbol of Iran's economic hardship, according to a newspaper investigation published on Wednesday that linked supermarket shoplifting to inflation and shrinking purchasing power.
Unlike the corruption scandals that have long dominated headlines in Iran, the report by Jahan-e Sanat focuses on thefts measured not in billions of rials but in loaves of bread, packages of cheese and cuts of meat.
It argues that cases involving everyday groceries are increasingly reflecting economic distress rather than simple criminality.
"There are no billions of tomans, no gold, no luxury villas," the newspaper wrote. "Sometimes it is only a can of cheese, a loaf of bread or a few simple food items."
Days before Jahan-e Sanat published its report, CCTV footage from outside a minimarket at night in the northern city of Babolsar spread widely across Persian-language social media.
The footage appears to show a woman wearing a black chador approaching a display of boxed goods outside the shop. After pausing beside the display and glancing around, she appears to pick up one of the boxes before walking away.
Exactly what prompted the woman's actions remains unknown. But for many Iranians, the clip became less about one apparent shoplifting than about the growing struggle to afford everyday necessities.
"May God never let anyone feel ashamed in front of their family," one user wrote.
"This is what happens when prices keep rising. We live in a country rich in oil and gold, yet the government cannot provide for 87 million people," another commented.
"People simply cannot afford to buy things anymore because prices have become so expensive," another wrote.
Others pleaded with whoever shared the footage not to expose the woman's identity.
"Who would steal a few groceries unless driven by poverty and hunger? God help them," one commenter wrote.
"Maybe she had no money to buy food for her children. The shopkeeper should have protected her dignity instead of exposing her," another said.
Some comments contrasted the apparent theft with what they described as large-scale corruption, arguing authorities should focus on powerful figures accused of enriching themselves rather than people taking everyday necessities.
The sympathy expressed online echoed account gathered by Jahan-e Sanat from a supermarket employee who described an apparent increase in customers taking inexpensive food items.
Behind the supermarket shelves
Amirhossein, an employee at a large supermarket chain, told the newspaper he had witnessed several such incidents during the past 10 months.
He recalled seeing a woman place two tubs of cheese into her handbag during a busy period before leaving without paying. In another case, he said, security camera footage later showed a man leaving with butter, cakes and pastries concealed beneath his coat.
Staff also stopped a customer who had eaten packaged cakes inside the store and hidden the empty wrappers before trying to leave, according to the employee.
Perhaps most surprising, Amirhossein said, was a regular customer who was caught taking a package of meat.
"I think poverty is the main reason," he told Jahan-e Sanat. "You cannot judge everyone the same way, but when someone steals a simple item, they are probably under enormous pressure. Sometimes, if what was taken has little financial value, we don't pursue it because we think the person's circumstances may have brought them to this point."
'A crisis of livelihoods'
Sociologist Mostafa Abroshan said reports of thefts involving bread, dairy products and other essentials should be viewed in the context of Iran's prolonged economic difficulties.
"Thefts of basic goods, especially food and other necessities, reflect disruptions in economic structures and the declining ability of households to meet their basic needs," he told the newspaper.
"This does not justify theft, but it shows that people's behavior must be understood within its social context."
Abroshan said inflation, declining purchasing power and job insecurity had left many households struggling to afford essential goods.
"A society in which stealing bread, milk or rice becomes more common is facing a crisis of livelihoods and social justice more than a security crisis," he said.
Prolonged economic hardship, he warned, could also erode social trust, leaving retailers more suspicious of customers, increasing security costs and weakening confidence in public institutions.
While enforcing the law remains necessary, Abroshan said that reducing poverty, controlling inflation, creating jobs and strengthening social support would do more to curb petty theft than harsher punishment alone.
Without addressing the economic pressures facing low-income households, he said, the theft of everyday groceries risks becoming an increasingly visible measure of Iran's widening cost-of-living crisis.
The experts said at least 24 members of the Baluch minority and 22 members of the Kurdish minority had been executed in 2026, with many more at imminent risk of execution.
“Iran’s ethnic minorities must be able to live in safety and dignity, free from discrimination,” the experts said in a statement.
Kurds are concentrated mainly in western and northwestern Iran, while many of Iran's Baluch population live in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. Both predominantly Sunni communities have long faced political, economic and security pressure from the Shiite-led authorities, according to rights groups.
“Reports point to a significant increase in arbitrary arrests, and what appears to be politically motivated sentences,” the experts said, adding that members of ethnic minorities were often detained under broadly defined national security charges.
The experts said a 2025 law expanding the definition of espionage, along with offenses including moharebeh, or “enmity against God,” efsad-fil-arz, or “spreading corruption on earth,” and baghi, or armed rebellion against the Islamic Republic, had been used particularly against Kurds.
They described the laws as “a tool to repress dissent.”
Executions rise
Thursday’s warning comes a day after UN human rights chief Volker Türk said Iran had executed at least 56 people on national security-related charges since March 19, including 27 in cases linked to protests earlier this year.
Türk said executions and death sentences had risen since March and that more than 100 other people faced similar charges and the death penalty.
The figures follow a series of executions in recent weeks involving young people detained over the January protests.
Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday after he was sentenced to death over his involvement in the protests, according to information obtained by Iran International.
Days earlier, authorities hanged Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan’s Alikhani Square. They were among 12 young men sentenced to death in a case stemming from protests there in January.
A group of UN human rights experts led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, had urged Tehran to halt executions in the Isfahan case, citing concerns about closed proceedings, alleged ill-treatment and the use of confessions broadcast on state television.
Türk urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and move towards abolishing the death penalty.
The use of nas has become increasingly common among students, particularly in middle school, said Mostafa Mohammadpour, head of the state Welfare Organization office in the northeastern city of Kashmar. In some cases, he added, children in the upper years of primary school have begun using it.
"What has now become common among students and paves the way for drug dependence starts with the use of nas," Mohammadpour said. "Unfortunately, children have very easy access to it because selling it is not considered a crime and it is not recognized as a narcotic."
Nas, known across the region as naswar, is a moist green tobacco mixture held under the lip or tongue. It is a centuries-old habit in eastern Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, and because it produces no smoke, a child can use it in a classroom without anyone noticing.
'Why don't they stop it?'
The warning drew a wave of responses from users reacting to Iran International's coverage, many asking why the product remains on open sale despite years of warnings about its risks.
"Why don't they stop it from being distributed?" one commenter asked.
Another argued the answer lies in giving children somewhere else to go. "Municipalities should build at least three sports complexes for students in every district and make them free. School facilities should also be improved so students stay occupied and don't turn to it," the commenter wrote.
Others aimed their frustration at official indifference. "Do they even care what happens to young people?" one wrote.
Some tied the issue to wider political grievances. One X user alleged that the authorities allow addiction to spread among the young to blunt political activism, and wrote that nas "causes addiction quickly," "causes cancer in the mouth" and "damages teeth," adding a claim, which could not be independently verified, that products sold in Iran contain arsenic.
Within every child's reach
Because nas is not classified as an illegal narcotic, it sits on the shelves of small shops, and students obtain it with little difficulty, according to Mohammadpour.
The habit is most entrenched in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan, he said, but is no longer confined to one region, with nas now readily available across much of the country.
Tehran is no exception. Iranian media have reported vendors openly selling nas in and around the capital's Molavi market, the green tobacco displayed in packages large and small under a variety of brands.
The market draws buyers with lower prices and a wider selection, though the product is also sold through herbal shops across the city.
For children, the attraction is obvious: it is cheap, easy to hide and everywhere.
More than a tobacco habit
Doctors warn the risks run well beyond nicotine.
Research has linked nas to cancers of the mouth, esophagus and pancreas, as well as cardiovascular disease. Health experts also reject the belief that smokeless tobacco is a safe alternative to cigarettes, warning that no tobacco product is without risk.
The spread among students carries a further danger: early exposure to nicotine can leave children more vulnerable to addiction of every kind later in life, the concern at the heart of Mohammadpour's "gateway" warning.
A country's changing addictions
The warning lands against a wider shift in substance use in Iran.
More than 4.4 million people in Iran use narcotics regularly or occasionally, according to a report last year in the daily Shargh, which estimated that, counting their families, some 15 million people live with the consequences of drug use.
Officials and health experts have also pointed to rising use of synthetic drugs, a falling age of first use, and growing numbers of women and young people among users, signs that addiction in Iran is getting younger.
The children with green packs in their pockets, on this reading, are not an anomaly but the leading edge.
The action by Bank of Industry and Mine (BIM) comes despite domestic statutory provisions extending NIOC’s debt repayment deadlines through the end of the current Iranian fiscal year in March 2027, Fars reported, without giving the size of the debt or saying when the accounts were frozen.
The bank is a government-owned lender that mainly finances industrial and mining projects.
The apparent mismatch between the repayment timetable and the freezing of the accounts was not explained by Fars.
NIOC, overseen by Iran's Ministry of Petroleum, sits at the center of the country's energy industry, managing much of its oil exploration, production and exports and providing a major source of revenue.
Later on Wednesday, an NIOC financial official told the Tasnim news agency that the company had been in a dispute with Iran's tax authorities over electronic reporting requirements.
Morteza Rouhi, a tax official in NIOC's financial management division, said state-budgeted companies such as NIOC hold some information they are not permitted to disclose, including details related to oil exports, while tax rules require companies to register sales and transactions electronically.
“The oil and economy ministers held a meeting, after which the president’s legal office intervened and ordered a halt to enforcement. We now have no concerns about the National Iranian Oil Company’s accounts being frozen,” Rouhi said.
Sanctions and domestic pressure
Fars said the accounts were frozen over debt but also pointed in the same report to financial restrictions previously imposed on NIOC by the US Treasury. The bank itself was sanctioned in 2018.
The reference is notable because Washington's restrictions on NIOC have themselves been tied to the company's relationship with the Revolutionary Guards.
The US Treasury determined in 2012 that NIOC was an agent or affiliate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and in 2020 designated the company under counterterrorism authorities over what it said was NIOC's support for the IRGC's Quds Force.
NIOC is nevertheless formally overseen by Iran's Ministry of Petroleum and sits at the heart of the state economy, managing much of the country's oil production and exports.
The account freeze therefore puts a domestic financial restriction on a government-controlled company whose international financial finances have been affected by its links to the IRGC, as described by the US Treasury.
Fault lines in Tehran
The action also comes as the war and negotiations with Washington have made divisions among Iran's centers of power increasingly public.
Those divisions do not fall neatly between the government and the IRGC. President Masoud Pezeshkian and officials involved in diplomacy, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, have faced pressure from hardline lawmakers, media and political groups opposed to concessions to Washington.
Ghalibaf, himself a former senior IRGC commander, has faced criticism from ultra-hardliners over his role in negotiations. Lawmakers have also stepped up pressure on Araghchi to disclose details of the US talks, with one senior lawmaker saying this week that parliamentarians were gathering material for a possible impeachment effort against the foreign minister.
The divisions have also surfaced among pro-government supporters mobilized on the streets during the war, a constituency sometimes referred to as the "meydan," or field.
Ghalibaf has emphasized the authorities' role in that mobilization, saying officials called supporters onto the streets after news of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's death because they feared the situation could otherwise take a “different turn”.
Some of those gatherings later became platforms for opposition to negotiations and criticism of Ghalibaf, Araghchi and other officials involved in talks with Washington, turning a show of establishment support into another source of pressure over diplomacy.
Araghchi has suggested that foreign intelligence operations could exploit such internal vulnerabilities.
In a recent interview, he said they could seek not only to gather information but also to influence Iran's decision-making and shape its psychological environment and public perceptions.
The NIOC account freeze has not been linked to those political disputes. But it comes as the strains of war, US sanctions and renewed diplomacy increasingly expose tensions among the government, security establishment and other centers of power within the Islamic Republic.
