This is not a journalistic investigation. I am just sharing concerns that are circulating in Baghdad about the caliphate’s financing.

An Iraqi banking source has told me that the Islamic State (IS) is making a minimum of 25 million USD per month by participating in the Central Bank of Iraq’s (CBI) ‘dollar auction’. This adds up to approximately 300 million dollars a year, far outpacing how much IS is making off oil smuggling, according to some estimates.

How did it happen?

The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve launched an investigation into the CBI’s dollar auction, which prompted a temporary hold on sending dollars to Baghdad in the summer, according to a Nov. 3 front-page story that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The investigation looked into whether IS was somehow benefiting from the flow of these large sums of money through the auction, that in the year 2015 amounted…