Iranian Police Announce Seizure of Hundreds of Millions of Dollars and Euros in 'Smuggled Currency'

Following the Iranian government's new policy to restrict currency exchanges to banks and declare currency exchange operations outside of the announced regulations as 'smuggling', a senior police official reported the discovery and seizure of millions of dollars and euros in 'smuggled currency'. According to the IRNA news agency, Iskander Momeni, the deputy commander of the Islamic Republic's police, stated on Thursday, April 30, in Sari: 'After the unification of the currency rate and the formation of 200 operational teams, 160 million dollars and 200 million euros of smuggled currency have been discovered and seized so far.' The government of Hassan Rouhani recently announced a 'single-rate dollar at the price of 4200 tomans' and declared that carrying more than 10,000 euros or its equivalent is also a 'crime'. These actions followed a sudden spike in currency prices in the free market, which saw the rate of each US dollar reach a record six thousand tomans. The sudden increase in the dollar price began on April 18 of this year, and within three days, the price of this currency rose by about 900 tomans to reach six thousand tomans. The deputy commander of the Iranian police stated on Thursday that 'the important mission of NAJA in 2019 is to confront currency smugglers' and reported the arrest of '112 currency smugglers and brokers' and the closure of 50 'illegal' exchange offices, with warnings issued to 100 other exchange offices. The government of Hassan Rouhani has also recently issued sixteen directives to control the currency market; Fereydoun Khavand, an economic analyst residing in Paris, in an interview with Radio Farda, deemed it 'impossible or very difficult' to influence the currency market through directives, citing the main factors affecting the turmoil in the currency market in Iran as the Islamic Republic's tense foreign policy, the jeopardy of the JCPOA, and the possibility of the US exiting this agreement. The sharp increase in the dollar price in Iran since April has occurred while the previous government also attempted to prevent this through security measures, and similar security actions were implemented in the final months of the previous year. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and other Iranian officials have attributed the recent crisis in Iran's currency market to 'foreigners and their intelligence agencies', but they have not provided evidence for their claims. In the continuation of the currency crisis in Iran, the government of Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday requested executive bodies to consider the euro as 'the currency for reporting and publishing statistics, information, and financial data'. In this context, the Iranian government changed the 'base currency' from the dollar to the euro. The head of the Central Bank stated: 'The price of currency fluctuates annually by 5 to 6 percent.' The Organization of Trade and Sanctions has warned currency brokers simultaneously with the announcement of new currency policies.