Tehran Prosecutor: $1.2 Billion Sold in the Market Using Rental Cards

The Tehran prosecutor announced that "$1.2 billion" was sold in the market using "rental" national cards, "without the role of currency exchange dealers and main agents being recorded in the systems related to currency buying and selling." According to ISNA news agency, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi warned on Tuesday, January 8, about the "misuse" of national cards and "rental" bank accounts by "currency defendants." He stated that some defendants in currency cases "confessed that in exchange for a monthly payment of about 500,000 tomans, they used the bank accounts of others." According to Mr. Jafari Dolatabadi, based on information from a case file that the police formed regarding the buying and selling of government currencies, "at least $1.2 billion was sold in the free market using the national cards of individuals without the role of currency exchange dealers and 'main agents' being recorded in the systems related to currency buying and selling." The Tehran prosecutor did not clarify whether this currency was injected into the market by the government to control currency prices or entered the market through other means. On November 23, Mr. Jafari Dolatabadi acknowledged the failure of government programs to control the currency market, stating that the Central Bank injected $18.5 billion into the market over six months to stabilize the currency rate. Meanwhile, Adel Azar, head of the Court of Audit, previously stated that last year, $22 billion of "intervention currency was injected into the market." However, Mohammad Dehghan, a member of parliament, wrote on Twitter: "An examination of part of the cases shows that out of $18 billion of 4200 tomans currency paid, $2.7 billion of it was sold in the market at free prices; why doesn’t the Central Bank provide transparency and introduce the violators to the judiciary?" After the crisis in Iran's currency market, some individuals have been arrested on charges of receiving government currency and selling it at free prices, but government officials have not disclosed how much of this currency was sold at free prices in the market. Meanwhile, according to the rulings of special courts formed with the approval of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Vahid Malekzadeh, known as the "Sultan of Coins," and his accomplice Mohammad Ismail Qasemi, as well as Hamidreza Bagheri, were executed. Dariush Ebrahimi Bilandi and Younes Bahadadini were also sentenced to death in these courts. Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has described the speed of confirming the death sentences related to the special courts as "illegal" and stated that these actions are aimed at "calming dissatisfied people." The government accepted the failure of the single exchange rate policy in July of this year and created a "secondary currency market," which means a three-tiered currency system. However, 50 economists wrote a letter to the heads of the three branches of the Islamic Republic, requesting that all currencies obtained from the sale of raw and primary mineral, steel, and petrochemical materials be sold to the Central Bank and that the "secondary currency market be closed." In this context, the Central Bank submitted a bill to the government to remove four zeros from the national currency.