Defendants in Iran`s $2.6b fraud case stand trial in Tehran

TEHRAN, Feb. 19 (MNA) -- The first court session in the trial of 32 defendants accused of involvement in a $2.6 billion financial fraud case was held in Tehran on Saturday. The Arya Investment Company is at the center of the controversy. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi read out the introduction of the 220-page indictment issued for the defendants at the beginning of the open court session and said that other cases against members of the gang are open. “Since the end of the first decade of the revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has ratified a number of laws about financially corrupt people and regards them as ‘corrupt people on the Earth’,” Dolatabadi stated. According to the law, anyone convicted of being a ‘corrupt person on the Earth’ must receive the death sentence. Four sons of Mansour Khan Amir-Khosravi are the main owners of the Arya Investment Company and applied for a loan a few years ago to establish the Damash Mineral Water Company in the city of Roudbar in the northwestern province of Gilan, Dolatabadi explained. “They took the first step by establishing dubious connections with certain administrative and political elements and bribing them with the aim of accelerating administrative procedures and acquired wealth,” he added. Then they established the Amir Mansour Arya Investment Development Company in the Iranian calendar year 1385 (March 2006-March 2007) and made every effort to realize their dishonest objectives, Dolatabadi said. According to the documents in the case, bribes were paid to managing directors and employees of certain banks and bodies of the executive branch of the government, he added. Dolatabadi also said, “The current case is an instance of an organized gang that has undermined the economic security of the society through criminal activities carried out at an investment company.”