Details of the case of currency violations of Central Bank managers in Rouhani’s government
According to Iran EconomistValiullah Saif and Ahmed Araghchi, the former directors of the Central Bank who were in charge of the Mirdamad glass building in the previous government, were recognized by the Revolutionary Court as foreign currency meddlers in the informal market and were sentenced to pay a fine of over one thousand billion tomans.
According to Iran EconomistOn Saturday (May 16, 1402), the first branch of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, which deals with the crimes of disrupters in the economic system, after hearing the statements of the representative of the prosecutor, the defendants and their lawyers and examining the contents and documents of the case, the committed behavior, Waliullah Saif, Ahmed Araghchi and Salar Agakhani Dayer recognized foreign currency intervention in the informal currency market as consistent with the crime of currency smuggling and voted to condemn the named persons. According to this verdict, Valiullah Saif and Ahmed Iraqi, as the former managers of the Central Bank, have been sentenced to pay a fine of 1,630 billion tomans.
“Waliullah Saif” was the head of the central bank in the 11th and 12th governments between 1392 and 1397. During his tenure, important events took place in the central bank and one of the important and debatable actions during the presidency of Saif in the central bank was the issue of organizing unauthorized financial and credit institutions, pre-sale of coins in the market and 4,200 toman dollars, each of which was a serious crisis for The country’s economy followed.
The case of Saif and his deputy goes back to the summer of 2018. During the period when exchange rate fluctuations were severe and Ahmad Araghchi, the deputy of the central bank at the time, who was appointed to this position on August 17, 2016, was arrested by the prosecutor’s order and finally released on bail, exactly one year after that, on August 13, 2018. The trial of 9 foreign currency corruptors related to the Central Bank was held publicly in the second branch of the Special Court for Economic Corruptors headed by Hojjatul Islam wal Muslimeen Seyyed Ahmad Zargar.
In the court of the defendants of currency manipulation that was held in the summer of 2018, Salar Aghakhani, Seyed Ahmad Araghchi, Seyed Rasul Sajjad, Ehsan Mofi, Meisham Khodayi Kalaki, Ali Arvand, Farshad Heydari, Milad Godarzi and Mansour Daneshpour along with their lawyers in front of Judge Zargar and His two advisers were Hozran and Babaei.
According to the prosecutor’s representative, Seyyed Ahmed Araghchi, 41 years old, the deputy foreign exchange manager of the Central Bank, participated in disrupting the currency and monetary system of the country through major currency smuggling in a networked and organized manner in the amount of 159,800,000 and 20 million dollars. And 500,000 euros was charged.
Garhani said in the court session that in the period of 1996 and 1997, the central bank brought a significant part of foreign exchange reserves into the market by auctioning the country’s assets. In a strange move, the central bank selected more than 10 exchanges and provided them with millions of dollars daily, and gradually a network of dollar games was formed, and the selected exchanges that were supposed to use the dollars received from the central bank in the market for a percentage of profit. provided to individuals.
According to him, Araghchi has sold government currency through Salar Aghakhani through the banking network without obtaining approval from the Monetary Council. In this way, Aga Khani was asked to buy five million dollars of foreign currency from the central bank during a secret cooperation at each stage and sell it to whoever he sees fit, and then Aga Khani is secretly told that he will continue his foreign exchange activities after hours. 16 to transfer.
The prosecutor’s representative explained: Aghakhani and his agents first determined the price of dollars in informal markets and then received them from the Central Bank and sold these dollars to currency smugglers by conducting tomorrow’s transactions, and there was no supervision by the Central Bank.
After the first court session, another official report of the holding of subsequent sessions was not published until 13 May 1400, Ali Al-Qasi Mehr, the Prosecutor of Tehran, presented a report on the latest status of the case of foreign exchange interventions by senior government officials in the period between 2015 and 2017 at the meeting of the Supreme Council of Judicial Officials. He informed about the payment and submission of the case of Valiullah Saif, the former head of the central bank, to the special court for disruption of the economic system and said that in the years 2015-2017, not only the laws related to the currency system of the country were violated, but also the legal obligations that require the approval of the intervention. The exchange and sale of gold coins in the Money and Credit Council to pay foreign exchange resources to the real needy and to prevent the formation of an intermediary and brokerage market for these resources was also not observed, and in addition to disrupting the economic system, 30 billion and 200 million dollars of foreign exchange resources and 60 tons of gold reserves have been destroyed.
During the hearing of the case on October 24, 1400, Zabihullah Khodaian, as the spokesperson of the judiciary, announced: “The first-tier accused, Waliullah Saif, the head of the central bank at the time, is accused of disrupting the order and tranquility of the country’s foreign exchange market and creating grounds for buying And the illegal sale of foreign currency in the amount of 159 million 800 thousand dollars and 20 million 500 thousand euros, as well as negligence and mismanagement during his responsibility, he has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. The accused in the second tier, Seyed Ahmed Araghchi, the deputy of foreign exchange of Central Bank, was also sentenced to eight years in prison with the same charges. In this case, Agha Khani was also sentenced to 13 years in prison.
In fact, after the retrial of Ahmed Araghchi and Waliullah Saif was accepted in the Supreme Court, the final verdict of the case of the former managers of the Central Bank was issued by the special court for dealing with the crimes of those who disrupt the economic system on Saturday (May 16). The first branch of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, which specializes in dealing with the crimes of those who disrupt the economic system, recognized the currency interventions in the informal currency market by Saif, Araghchi and Aghakhani as consistent with currency smuggling. At the same time, the court believes that even though no money was lost and there was no abuse, the central bank entered the market without legal authority.