Police Arrests Dozens of Currency Dealers in Tehran

Following reports of the arrest of currency dealers, Abbasali Mohammadian, the head of Tehran's Criminal Investigation Police, announced that 50 individuals were detained on Wednesday, December 9, in Tehran's currency market. This police official, speaking with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), referred to these individuals as "currency dealers and traffickers" and stated that their arrest was conducted in coordination with the judicial authority of the Government Trading Regulations. Last Wednesday morning, several news agencies and sources in Iran reported the presence of a number of law enforcement officers in Tehran's currency market on Ferdowsi, Moini, and Istanbul intersection streets. According to the head of Tehran's Criminal Investigation Police, amounts of dollars, euros, pounds, lira, dinars, and rupees were also discovered and confiscated from these detainees. According to Tasnim News Agency, this "strike operation" occurred one day after Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Iran's Minister of Justice, emphasized the implementation of the law against smuggling goods and currency at an administrative corruption meeting. Under this law, any currency-related activity, including buying, selling, and transferring currency without a permit from the Central Bank of Iran, is illegal. Other news agencies and websites have described this action by law enforcement, which took place on the last working day of the previous week, as a step towards implementing the single exchange rate policy that the Central Bank insists on. Valiollah Seif, the head of the Central Bank, has repeatedly warned active currency traders in recent months to obtain a permit from the Central Bank to continue their activities. The head of the Central Bank emphasized that necessary coordination with law enforcement had been made to deal with unauthorized currency traders. Meanwhile, the simultaneous presence of Criminal Investigation Police officers in the currency market and the arrest of several dealers coincided with an increase in the dollar price, raising suspicions among experts that this action by law enforcement was a step towards controlling prices. In January 2013, during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, the Tehran Criminal Investigation Police also arrested over 88 unauthorized currency dealers and sellers after the currency market experienced significant fluctuations. However, an examination of the price fluctuations of various currencies until the end of last Wednesday, which was the last working day of the week, indicated a relative stability in Tehran's free currency market. On Wednesday, the dollar price fluctuated by five tomans, reaching around 3,650 tomans for currency seekers. The dollar price increased by more than 200 tomans over the past month, reaching a peak of 3,700 tomans, but after price adjustments, it fluctuated in a lower channel. The increase in the dollar price in Tehran's free currency market coincided with an increase in the exchange rate of this currency, which economic experts described as the Central Bank's efforts to implement the single exchange rate policy. The exchange rate of the dollar in recent days and weeks has entered a fluctuation channel of 3,100 tomans. Last week, Valiollah Seif, in response to the fluctuations in the dollar price in the free market and interbank market, attributed the price increase to "seasonal demands," which he believes is "a natural trend." The highest monetary authority in Iran has also urged people not to buy dollars, as they will "become cheaper." Some economic experts and many economic activists expected that after the implementation of the JCPOA, which involved the entry of some of Iran's blocked dollars into the country, the establishment of banking relations between Iran and international banks, the removal of banking and currency restrictions, and the reduction of operational costs of Iran's transactions, the exchange rates of various currencies in the domestic market would decrease, which has not been fulfilled. Conversely, there are many experts who recommend that the Central Bank should not succumb to the policy of controlling the exchange rate in the free market and allow the prices of various currencies to become real to facilitate the implementation of the single exchange rate policy.