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| Mahafari Amir-Khosravi |
TEHRAN — Iran’s state media is reporting that a key player in the country’s biggest-ever
banking scandal was executed here on Saturday.
The office of Tehran’s public prosecutor announced that Mahafari Amir-Khosravi, one of four co-conspirators given the death sentence in 2012 for their roles in embezzling the equivalent of $2.6 billion, was hanged inside Tehran’s Evin prison.
Among those accused in the case were executives at seven of Iran’s largest banks, and the managing director of the biggest one, Melli Bank, is still at large having fled the country soon after the details of the case were announced in September 2011.
Amir-Khosravi was convicted of forging letters of credit, proceeds of which were later used to set up a private bank.
Plans for his execution had not been made public and his death caught many by surprise.
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Source: The Washington Post, May 24, 2014
Iran billionaire executed over $2.6B fraud
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| Tehran's Evin Prison |
TEHRAN, Iran (Associated Press) —A billionaire businessman at the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam, the largest fraud case since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, was executed Saturday, state television reported.
Authorities put Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, also known as Amir Mansour Aria, to death at Evin prison, just north of the capital, Tehran, the station reported. The report said the execution came after Iran’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.
The fraud involved using forged documents to get credit at one of Iran’s top financial institutions, Bank Saderat, to purchase assets including state-owned companies like major steel producer Khuzestan Steel Co.
Khosravi’s business empire included more than 35 companies from mineral water production to a football club and meat imports from Brazil. According to Iranian media reports, the bank fraud began in 2007.
A total of 39 defendants were convicted in the case. Four received death sentences, two got life sentences and the rest received sentences of up to 25 years in prison.
The trials raised questions about corruption at senior levels in Iran’s tightly controlled economy during the administration of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Mahmoud Reza Khavari, a former head of Bank Melli, another major Iranian bank, escaped to Canada in 2011 after he resigned over the case. He faces charges over the case in Iran and remains on the Islamic Republic’s wanted list. Khavari previously admitted that his bank partially was involved in the fraud, but has maintained his innocence.
Source: NCRI, May 24, 2014
