Jahangiri: Iran must recoup lost money
Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri says Iran must take serious action to retrieve as much as $22 billion transferred to the UAE and Turkey under the former administration.
Jahangiri says billions of dollars had been sold to foreign exchange brokers in Dubai and Istanbul under a scheme to balance the forex market.
“Over a period of 17 months, $22 billion of the country’s money was shipped abroad. This figure is mind-boggling,” the vice president said.
The man at the center of the transfer is billionaire businessman Babak Zanjani who is currently held at Tehran’s Evin prison for corruption.
Investigations into his dealings began after he was accused of withholding some two billion dollars of Iran’s oil revenues.
“If the money with Babak Zanjani is not returned to the state treasury, the disgrace thereof will remain for the country since the public expects to hear news about the return of this money to the coffers,” Jahangiri said.
“The government wants to know how this individual (Zanjani) had made his way into the administration and earned this money,” he added.
In 2009, reports about mysterious appearance of more than $18 billion in the Turkish treasury made headlines in the country’s media.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, announced an $18.5 billion windfall, which is credited with stabilizing Turkey’s economy.
“Turkey’s God is great, he injected $18.5 billion into the Turkish economy in these hard economic ties,” Erdogan said then.
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