Iran: Investigation Into Financial Corruption
By Mahmoud Hakamian
It has been reported in Iranian media that Samen al-Hojaj Finance and Credit Institution is being investigated by a court in Tehran. Samen al-Hojaj is just one of many institutions that had been offering investors interest rates that are unusually high. The institution ended up being unable to offer the promised interest rates and funds were mishandled.
People in Iran have been severely affected by the corruption of Samen al-Hojaj and similar companies and there have been a series of protests instigated by investors over the past 12 months.
According to Sharq news agency in Iran, the Tehran court that has been investigating major cases of corruption deemed Samen al-Hojaj an illegal financial institution.
The company was licensed to operate in a town in the Khorasan province but it has opened hundreds of branches across the country. It managed to attract hundreds of millions of dollars from working and middle class people.
Banks and financial institutions are not legally allowed to pay and receive interest money, but it is something that is done anyway via labelling the transaction as something else (“profit” for example).
Some of the institutions were attracting customers by offering more than 25% interest, or “profit”, but the payments were slowly dropped to much lower rates. Many such institutions have been carrying on like this for years without being regulated or supervised by the state.
To make matters even worse, it was found out that Samen al-Hojaj lent tens of millions of dollars of client money to military and government officials. Furthermore, it had paid massive salaries to officials and family members that allegedly did work for the company. Many of those officials that received loans from the company were given very low interest rates and in several cases the loans were never paid back.
Three arrests have been made so far. The Judiciary named them as Abolfazl Mir Ali, the managing director of Samen al-Hojaj; Robabeh Ebrahimi, Mir Ali’s wife; and Mehdi Ramezanian. Although they are all under arrest, none of them have appeared in court.
The managing director of the institution has previously been in the headlines for pulling a gun on the governor of the Central Bank Valliollah Seyef in an attempt to intimidate him into designating Samen al-Hojaj a legitimate financial organisation.
The people of Iran have been protesting about the situation for months. Even those who did not lose money were protesting in support of those that did. Ordinary Iranians trying to pay their bills and get on with their lives were caught up in the affair and it has led to the people distrusting the government and authorities even more.
Regime’s Leader Ali Khamenei finally and under immense public pressure ordered the Judiciary and the government to look into the issue and to deal with the companies that duped the people out of their hard-earned money.
However, will this move really change anything? Will the investigation help the government gain the trust of the people again? definitely not. The investigation will do nothing more than confirm what the people now already know – that Samen al-Hojaj is corrupt, has been operating outside the law and has stolen huge sums of money off the people.
ما بر اندازیم# تهران # قیام دیماه# اعتصاب # تظاهرات# قیام سراسری# اتحاد
