Iran busts ring involved in large-scale money laundering activities

Iran’s Ministry of Economic and Financial Affairs (MEFA) said a large money laundering ring with more than half a billion dollars worth of transactions has been broken up as part of the country’s widening crackdown on financial crimes.

News ID: 6024

Date: 17 February 2025 - 09:33

TABNAK, Feb 17: The head of MEFA’s Financial Intelligence Unit said on Sunday that members of the large ring had provided services to money launderers in Iran with a focus on the country’s lucrative mobile phone market.

Hadi Khani said that the group had a turnover of over 500 trillion rials (more than $500 million) when the Iranian police discovered its activities.

Khani said members of the group had mostly used bank accounts opened by the needy and vulnerable people in Iran to launder money.

“They allowed business owners in the mobile phone market and mobile phone importers to use these fake accounts to make it impossible for authorities to track down their tax information,” he said.

The official said that a bank account of a poor woman who was exploited by the group had a turnover of 40 trillion rials (nearly $4.5 million) when it was tracked down by the police, adding that the same account had a monthly transaction balance of only 30 million rials in 2020.

Iran has toughened its crackdown on money laundering in recent years amid efforts to fight tax evasion activities that cost the government billions of dollars each year.

The crackdown is also aimed at creating more discipline in Iran’s banking and financial sector as the country seeks to join international organizations fighting money laundering and financial crimes.

Khani said that MEFA has been investigating 37 major money-laundering cases in recent months, adding that authorities have examined nearly 2,300 bank accounts as part of the investigation.

He also said the Iranian police have become increasingly involved in financial crime probes in the country in recent months.