Iranian court convicts 44 people in massive fraud case

Iran’s Fars News Agency said the verdicts for 44 of the 61 main defendants in the Debsh Tea case have been issued by the first branch of the Special Court for Economic Crimes in Tehran.

The primary charges against the first defendant include significant disruption of Iran’s economic and currency system, extensive disruption of the monetary system through the illegal sale of currency in the free market, and bribing government officials and bank employees.

According to this report, the first defendant has been sentenced to a total of 82 years in prison for committing multiple crimes and is also required to return to the government more than two billion euros, equaling three to ten times the value of smuggled tea, and all proceeds from the sale of currency in the free market.

The report says the first defendant’s total fines exceed 60 trillion rials. The two ministers convicted in the case are Seyyed Javad Sadatinejad, the former minister of agriculture, and Seyyed Reza Fatemi Amin,the former minister of industry, mines, and trade.

Sadatinejad was sentenced to two years of imprisonment and Fatemi Amin to one year. But these jail terms were given after the court decided to reduce their sentences per Article Six of the Law on Reducing Imprisonment Sentences and on the ground they their played an insignificant role in the crime.

Earlier, an inquiry by the General Inspection Organization of Iran showed that a company named Debsh Tea received $3.37 billion to import machinery and tea but instead sold the currency on the free market at a much higher rate.